I got a job at Metro and went in to see Louis Mayer, who told me he wanted me to be a producer. I said I wanted to write and direct. He said, "No, you have to produce first, you have to crawl before you can walk." Which is as good a definition of producing as I ever heard.
"Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies". Book by Leslie Halliwell, Harper Collins, p. 312, 2003.