I learned that, before you reach an objective, you must be ready with a new one, and you must start to communicate it to the organization. But it is not the goal itself that is important.

If you're not serving the customer, your job is to be serving someone who is.

You cannot improve one thing by 1000% but you can improve 1000 little things by 1%.

The moral of the story: perceptions are everything. During each moment you are in contact with a customer, you are the organization.

An individual without information can't take responsibility. An individual with information can't help but take responsibility.

Any time a customer comes into contact with any aspect of a business, however remote, is an opportunity to form an impression.

If anything goes wrong, the customer doesn't care whose fault it is. He's the one who's going to suffer anyway.

A true leader is one who designs the cathedral and then shares the vision that inspires others to build it.

Quality doesn't mean we have to be 100 percent better in any one thing; it means we strive to be 1 percent better in 100 things.

Giving someone the freedom to take responsibility releases resources that would otherwise remain concealed.

Problems should be solved on the spot, as soon as they arise. No front-line employee should have to wait for a supervisor's permission

This is life! It can harden and it can exalt!

In the queer mess of human destiny the determining factor is luck.

In my ideal world there would be 99% unemployment for actors, and I would be the 1% that's employed. I hear about somebody getting a job at Starbucks and I get jealous.

Fairness has not been enhanced by the tax code, but lobbyists have been made rich, politicians have been re-elected, and the economy has been made to suffer.

NBC's a little jealous of CNN correspondent Wolf Blitzer. They want to get a reporter with a macho-sounding name too, so they're changing Irving R. Levine's name to Scud Shrapnel.

Now here I am almost 52 years old, it's really easy. I'm way more at peace. But when you're a competitor, and you're as intent on becoming the best in the world as I was, it comes with consequences.

The true lasting quietness... comes from a complete consecration to the Divine

There is not one piece of cosmic dust that is outside the scope of God's sovereign providence.

I think the social faux par is probably what most people fear... more people fear public speaking than death and that's because we don't want to make a fool of ourselves. It's fundamental.

I feel most real to myself in the studio.