All great things have small beginnings.

A learning organization is an organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future.

You cannot force commitment, what you can do…You nudge a little here, inspire a little there, and provide a role model. Your primary influence is the environment you create.

The organizations that will truly excel in the future will be the organizations that discover how to tap people's commitment and capacity to learn at all levels in an organization.

The world is made of Circles And we think in straight Lines

Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes. It is a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things, for seeing ‘patterns of change’ rather than static ‘snapshots.’

The key to success isn't just thinking about what we are doing but doing something about what we are thinking.

The gap between vision and current reality is also a source of energy. If there were no gap, there would be no need for any action to move towards the vision. We call this gap creative tension.

A shared vision is not an idea...it is rather, a force in people's hearts...at its simplest level, a shared vision is the answer to the question 'What do we want to create?

Mental models are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures of images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action.

Don't push growth; remove the factors limiting growth.

Poetry has saved me on occasions when people couldn't.

I threw the pearl of my soul into a cup of wine. I went down the primrose path to the sound of flutes. I lived on honeycomb.

Faith comes out of the heart not the head.

America is addicted to wars of distraction.

All err the more dangerously because each follows a truth. Their mistake lies not in following a falsehood but in not following another truth.

God cloaks himself in invisibility and leaves the world to guess, hope, and kill over his identity and existence? This is love?

Being a writer is a rather hazardous occupation and there is a horribly high rate of writers who barely have the money for the paper and pen they use for their craft.

In this case, the government will essentially be run by the people who are running it now. The top level [Barack] Obama appointees will leave by inauguration day.

In the best material, you always should be able to somehow make a case for a story to be transposed to any other time.

You're a stalker with hooves." "I am not! I followed her to the Big House and hid in a bush and watched the whole thing.