After nearly 6,000 years of evidence on the subject, one thing stands clear: the people who end up as leaders in any organization, large or small, are often the craziest guys around.

Hi, I said. She came over, licked my hand discreetly, allowed herself to be scratched for a time, chased her tail in a dignified circle, lay down again. I remember thinking: There are times God puts a choice in front of you. I often had such thoughts back then. We took the dog.

I would love to have the power to stop waking at 3 a.m. every night to check my e-mail.

What about passion, dedication, loyalty? Can a robot provide those? No! On the other hand, it's easier to retire a robot when its day is done.

If you can listen well, people will say you're a good conversationalist.

Businesspeople are like sharks, not just because we're gray and slightly oily, or because our teeth trail the innards of those we have eviscerated, but because we must move forward or die.

I can't think of a comparable level of cultural excitement about something since Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in the 1960s.

Anger is a fuel. You need fuel to launch a rocket. But if all you have is fuel without any complex internal mechanism directing it, you don't have a rocket. You have a bomb

My favorite method of procrastination is to do something else that needs doing, but not quite so imminently. Sleeping is also good, as is drinking until you really can't do anything very well anymore.

Reading my way all the way through Sherlock Holmes gave me a lifelong love for crime and detective fiction.