The only leverage the manufacturer can apply to the retailer is his relationship with the consumer. And the main element in profit growth is going to have to lie in making his brand more valuable to the retailer, through its being more valuable to the consumer. And that means his brand must be unique, it must have no adequate direct substitutes - because it is in this, after all, that value lies.

A person could see a lot without ever leaving his own living room. Especially if he had the right tools.

In the years since, I've discovered there's a lot to be said for boredom.

I believe the first draft of a book — even a long one — should take no more than three months…Any longer and — for me, at least — the story begins to take on an odd foreign feel, like a dispatch from the Romanian Department of Public Affairs, or something broadcast on high-band shortwave duiring a period of severe sunspot activity.

Writing is like being in a dream state or under self-directed hypnosis. It induces a state of recall that - while not perfect - is pretty spooky.

When love leaves the world, all hearts are still. Tell them of my love and tell them of my pain and tell them of my hope, which still lives. For this is all I have and all I am and all I ask.

I've met talespinners before, Jake, and they're all cut more or less from the same cloth. They tell tales because they're afraid of life.