Percentage margins don't matter. What matters always is dollar margins: the actual dollar amount. Companies are valued not on their percentage margins, but on how many dollars they actually make, and a multiple of that.

If you never want to be criticized, for goodness sake don't do anything new.

I'm skeptical that the novel will be 're-invented.'

Any business plan won't survive its first encounter with reality. The reality will always be different. It will never be the plan.

When [competitors are] in the shower in the morning, they're thinking about how they're going to get ahead of one of their top competitors. Here in the shower, we're thinking about how we are going to invent something on behalf of a customer.

Maintain a firm grasp of the obvious at all times.

And I still buy books at B&N, Borders and Elliot Bay ... I probably shouldn't admit this. But I don't care. I love great bookstores.