The mindset that is needed, the capabilities that are needed, the metrics that are needed, the whole culture that is needed for discontinuous innovation, are fundamentally different.

Companies over-emphasize idea generation and under-emphasize idea execution when it comes to innovation.

We must think of innovation as doing a lot more for a lot less (money) for a lot more (people).

The more you hardwire a company on total quality management, the more it is going to hurt breakthrough innovation.

Organizations are not designed for innovation. Quite the contrary, they are designed for ongoing operations.

I can ask for cigarettes in every language

Things work out the way they're supposed to.

Protect the ears of your heart, rather than being drawn in each day like the fading tides that dance daily with the moon.

Life is much shorter than I imagined it to be.

People are able to live with only half a heart, to live without real compassion, because they are able to use words that are only forms.

The best-dressed man is an Italian who is trying to look English, or an Englishman who is trying to look Italian.

I don't know if this is a good thing to say, but the musical obsession has almost shifted to a creative obsession now.

How well Shakespeare knew how to improve and exalt little circumstances, when he borrowed them from circumstantial or vulgar historians.

Whether or not this story has a happy ending depends, of course, on who is reading it. Whether you are a wolf or a girl.

I like to bet on people, especially those who have taken risks and failed in some way, because they have more real-world experience. And they’re humble.