“There are few experiences in life as painful and brutal as the failure of a small business. For a small business conceived and nurtured by its owner is like a living, breathing child. Its loss is no less traumatic than losing a loved one.”

“Many small businesses are doomed from day one, not from competition or the economy, but from the ignorance of their owners . . . their destiny is already decided because they have no idea how a business should be operated.”

“Football is not merely a small business, it's also a bad one. Anyone who spends any time inside football soon discovers that just as oil is part of the oil business, stupidity is part of the football business.”

“There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”

“Lena felt like a child. Worse than a child and less valuable. She felt like a mouse. No, smaller than a mouse and less alive. Her life seemed so small and crumpled you could shoot it through a straw like a spitball.”

“There was a way in which my grandmother's true self was not these guests' business; no one's true self was the business of more than a very small number of family members or close friends.”