I'm going to go do this crazy thing. I'm going to start this company selling books online.

A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.

The common question that gets asked in business is, why? That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, why not?

We can't be in survival mode. We have to be in growth mode.

What we want to be is something completely new. There is no physical analog for what Amazon.com is becoming.

One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. You don't choose your passions; your passions choose you.

If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.

It's hard to find things that won't sell online.

Everything you are comes from your choices.

A company shouldn't get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn't last.

We've had three big ideas at Amazon that we've stuck with for 18 years, and thy're the reason we're successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.

If you can not be a poet, be the poem.

I'm either going to be a writer or a bum.

There are stories in the air as thick as birds around me, he would say. I will save those stories from starving he would say. I have a great hunger for stories, he would say.

Imitate the sun. Don't worry if people understand you. Just shine shine shine.

I've made films about the middle classes because I know them best. Everyone talks about what he knows best.

The past assumes the nature of the present.

The practice of diplomacy, I have found, is sometimes like eating soup with a fork: much activity yielding little nourishment.

Given that I was interested in physics, I think it was easier for me to do physics in India.