“The European Parliament responded by focusing on corporate governance. If corporations wanted to be legal citizens they could damned well shoulder the responsibilities of good citizenship as well as the benefits. Social as well as financial audits were the order of the day. Directives outlining standards for corporate citizenship were drafted and a lucrative niche for a new generation of management consultants emerged - those who could look at an organization and sound a warning if its structure rewarded pathological behaviour.”

“Nothing stands for content-free corporate bullshit quite like PowerPoint. And that's just scratching the surface...”

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a sane employee in possession of his wits must be in want of a good manager.”

“Unfortunately it's also true to say that good management is a bit like oxygen - it's invisible and you don't notice its presence until it's gone, and then you're sorry.”

“Corporate power consolidation is so enormous that even the government could be viewed as a small appendage of a larger corporate organism.”

“I was raised thinking that moral and ethical standards are universals that apply equally to everyone. And these values aren't easily compatible with the kind of religion that posits a Creator. To my way of thinking, an omnipotent being who sets up a universe in which thinking beings proliferate, grow old, and die (usually in agony, alone, and in fear) is a cosmic sadist.”

“I spent six hours becoming one with a shrubbery last night. There were three cloudbursts and a rain of small and very confused frogs”