“Being unable to make people more reasonable, I preferred to be happy away from them”

“I like people. I like watching them. It's just I'd prefer to do it from a mile away using very poweful binoculars.”

“Kevin: 'Hey, Dad. How do you stop people from being stupid?'Dad: 'You don't.'Kevin: 'Really?'Dad: 'I've tried to explain to people when they're being stupid, but then I realized something: Most people like being stupid.'Kevin: 'I don't get it.'Dad: 'Some people just prefer it. It makes their lives easier if they let other people think for them.'Kevin: 'But that doesn't make sense. That's just stu...Oh...”

“You must never feel badly about making mistakes ... as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons.”

“The single best way to develop leaders . . . is to take people out of their safe environment and away from the people they know, and throw them into a new arena they know little about. Way over their head, preferably. In fact, the more demanding their challenges, the more pressure and risk they face, the more likely a dynamic leader will emerge.”

“I walk away from him. It's enormously pleasing to me, this walking away. It's like being able to make people appear and vanish, at will.”