“Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions.”

“New truth is often uncomfortable, especially to the holders of power; nevertheless, amid the long record of cruelty and bigotry, it is the most important achievement of our intelligent but wayward species.”

“What’s true is that everyone is uncomfortable with expressing anger and being critical. Anger and criticism generates rejection. And everyone hates rejection.”

“Most of us seldom take the trouble to think. It is a troublesome and fatiguing process and often leads to uncomfortable conclusions. But crises and deadlocks when they occur have at least this advantage, that they force us to think.”

“Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing, and is far more unpleasant. Being selective - doing less - is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest.”

“Being tiny has been difficult for me in a business that regarded physicality as the most important part of your life.”

“We mean by "politics" the people's business — the most important business there is.”

“I set out by challenging conventional wisdom. They said the turntable didn't matter; I said it was critical. They said the speaker was the most important thing; I said it was the last thing to worry about. So I started off in conflict in an industry where few people understood the mechanical things and the recording aspects of the business.”

“People who avoid all criticism fail. It's destructive criticism we need to avoid, not criticism in all forms.”

“Criticism is something you can easily avoid by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”