I've learned. . . That the easiest way for me to grow as a person is to surround myself with people smarter than I am.
I look at what the phone company does and do the opposite.
Treat people like you want to be treated; live and let live; and also give the other person a break now and then.
Death is my exit strategy. I'll be doing significant customer service only as long as I live.
I don't expect to be a ‘leader’ with this thing. I'd rather be a builder. I'd like to build a way for people doing good work to connect, to learn from each other, protect each other, and then I want to get out of their way.
The stuff that works best is driven by passion rather than dollars.
There's no genius behind it. It's persistence and listening to people.
George Clooney had the web of celebrity from television and doing 'ER,' and he's able to parlay that into films. God willing, I'll be up there in a few years.
During the years when the barely educated immigrants were being replaced by barely educated native sons, Hollywood. . . proved a more reliable, cost-effective means of securing world domination than any nuclear arsenal or diplomatic démarche.
Abraham Lincoln was not all brooding and melancholy and patient understanding. There was a hard core in him, and plenty of toughness. He could recognize a revolutionary situation when he saw one, and he could act fast and ruthlessly to meet it.
My life wasn't always smooth sailing. Two members of my family were diagnosed with cancer, so I spent a lot of time in hospitals and giving home care. Several close friends died. I fell in love with the wrong person. And I was working all the time but still sliding into debt. My life wasn't anything like I thought it would be. And then I got in a bad car accident. I walked away, but it was like a splash of cold water. The next day, I started writing Twelve Lives. Sometimes, when you're backed into a corner and have nothing to lose, it's a great place to write from.