Sometimes the only thing to do is to take the thing that you must have. Even if someone gets hurt.

And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it.

Sometimes the things presented to us as choices aren't choices at all.

Be true, be brave, stand All the rest is darkness.

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.

I write about rats because they scare the hell out of me. I think we tend to write out our phobias.

The water was glassy and calm, still candy-colored in the afterglow of sunset.