If you decide that you're going to do only the things you know are going to work, you're going to leave a lot of opportunity on the table.

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.

But a bond is a bond. And when you’re young and haven’t yet learned to live in your own solitude, even a destructive bond can seem better than none.

Do not allow hate to consume you. Live a life of love.

Loving someone liberates the lover as well as the beloved. And that kind of love comes with age.

I got what I needed instead of what I wanted and that's just about the best kind of luck you can have.

Does not a misplaced optimism exist, common to all mankind, leading on to false conviction that social engagements, if dated sufficiently far ahead, will never really materialize?

Life is but a mask worn on the face of death. And is death, then, but another mask? 'How many can say,' asks the Aztec poet, 'that there is, or is not, a truth beyond?'

As a comedian, I think you need to keep things real.

I guess since the groin is the center of a guy's world, he rarely guesses it isn't the center of yours.

You can't throw a rock without a comic book character falling out of a tree.

Psychiatrists always say, Oh, we're very professional. I use exercise as my medication.