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

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.

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

"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.

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 particularly felt that my job in management was safe from the incursion of machines with friendly faces painted on the front of their heads, or whatever you call the metal constructions atop their shoulders, if those are indeed shoulders.

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.