In McKinsey's world, all of life is one of two things: strategy or organization.

Leaders don't create followers, they create more leaders.

The magic formula that successful businesses have discovered is to treat customers like guests and employees like people.

If a window of opportunity appears, don't pull down the shade.

The greatest difficulty in the world is not for people to accept new ideas, but to make them forget old ideas.

The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say 'I'. They don't think 'I'. They think 'we'; they think 'team'.

Celebrate what you want to see more of.

Excellence is not an aspiration. Excellence is what you do in the next five minutes.

Divas do it, golfers do it, pilots do it, violists do it, sprinters do it, soldiers do it, surgeons do it, astronauts do it...only business people think it isn't necessary to train.

The thing that keeps a business ahead of the competition is excellence in execution.

Stop being conned by the old mantra that says, 'Leaders are cool, managers are dweebs.' Instead, follow the Peters Principle: Leaders are cool. Managers are cool too!

People don't think when they're enjoying themselves. Thinking is a sign of disturbance.

Around them there was nothing but silence, as if all the world were holding its breath.

The present was perfect and I wasgoing to stay in it for as long as possible.

Don’t do it. Don’t love me.

Attention is the key; for where man's attention goes, there goes his energy, and he himself can only follow.

It is a singular fact that most men of action incline to the theory of fatalism, while the greater part of men of thought believe in providence.

The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the mental labor employed in it, or the mental pleasure in producing it.

The people in your life are like the pillars on your porch. Sometimes they hold you up, and sometimes they lean on you. Sometimes it's enough to know they are standing by.

My view of life is, 'If you're going to miss Heaven, why miss it by two inches? Miss it!

... suicide gets in the air sometimes. Like a cold germ.