My parents brought me up with this philosophy. You must do things. You mustn't watch what other people are doing. You must not listen to what other people are doing.

You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.

The balloons only have one life and the only way of finding out whether they work is to attempt to fly around the world.

Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.

Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to.

If you look after your staff, they'll look after your customers. It's that simple.

Listen more than you talk. Nobody learned anything by hearing themselves speak.

Business opportunities are like buses, there's always another one coming.

If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes-then learn how to do it later!

Never take your eyes off the cash flow because it's the life blood of business.

If people aren't calling you crazy, you aren't thinking big enough.

I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment

That's my only active wish. I think if I sang like Don Henley, this would be a lot more agreeable business.

Be thankful for problems. If they were less difficult, someone with less ability might have your job.

Hope is the most hopeless thing of all.

The battle is tough but if you reach where you want to go, then at least in some sense it is worth it.

The American Dream is the largely unacknowledged screen in front of which all American writing plays itself out.

As I've grown older, I've grown more convinced there's nothing that shouldn't be talked about. If we think we're protecting each other, we're not.

Adam was the author of sin, and I wish he had taken out an international copyright on it.

Normally writers do not talk much,because they are saving their conversations for the readers of their book- those invisible listeners with whom we wish to strike a sympathetic chord.

The greatest accomplishment is not in never failing, but in rising again after you fall.