Business

The average buyer in bookshop spends 8 seconds on the front cover and 15 seconds on the back cover before deciding whether to purchase the book or not. On average, he does not get past page 18. See? The odds are stacked against us writers!

If you accept working for 'peanuts' don't complain when you're treated like a monkey.

To make a decision, all you need is authority. To make a good decision, you also need knowledge, experience, and insight.

[about a hat] You can put it on and say, 'Hey you, person without a hat! I've got something you don't! How did I get it? Probably by being worth more to society.

When I started, you had cochineal food colouring that would turn things pink, but you could never make it red. Now, red is no problem - and if you look at supermarket bakery sections since 'Bake Off' began, you can get everything.

Corporations cannot commit treason nor be outlawed nor excommunicated for they have no souls.

From my very first day as an entrepreneur, I've felt the only mission worth pursuing in business is to make people's lives better.

A funny thing happens in real estate. When it comes back, it comes back up like gangbusters.

So far he’d been there for three hours, hadn’t gotten a thing done, was heading out for a free lunch, and was getting paid for it. Jobs were awesome.

In any assembly the simplest way to stop the transacting of business and split the ranks is to appeal to a principle.

Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.

Those who find it hypocritical of others to use, say, a smartphone, to speak ill of capitalism, needs to be reminded that capitalism is an ideology, not a technology.

No secrecy, no business.

Forget the consultants, the pundits and the pollsters; good policy is good politics.

I'm deeply and passionately involved in the design process. I'm a brash American, and if my name is going to be on something, I'm going to have my say.

Beware the person who won't be bothered with details.

For a writer it's a genuinely interesting and hopefully profitable era that makes a variety of books available to a variety of readers, extending both what's available and who gets to read it.

Competitive forces = the underlying drivers of profitability P.25.

The legal system has been designed to rob the bank accounts of the common people.

I had always been fascinated with Napoleon because he was a self-made emperor; Victor Hugo said, 'Napoleon's will to power,' and it was the title of my paper. And I submitted it to my teacher, and he didn't think I had written it. And he wanted me to explain it to him.