“How can you expect to be rescued if you don’t put first things first and act proper?”

“If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there.”

“Do things right the first time. If you don’t have time to do a job once, you certainly don’t have time to do it again.”

“You can never awaken using the same system that put you to sleep in the first place.”

“First, we really don’t care how you did it in Chicago. Second, if you miss it so much, Delta is ready when you are.”

“You know how a play in dialect is. At the first act, you think, “How quaint!”; at the second act, you wish they would either stop using dialect or keep quiet; and at the third act, you wish you hadn’t come. And Tillie, may I mention in passing, has four acts. p. 64”

“Thoughts alone won’t make extraordinary things happen. But nothing ever happens if you don’t visualise it first.”

“Bless yourself first before expecting God to bless you.”

“You don’t talk to Ahmadinejad. First of all, he’s not the decision maker. When Senator Obama suggests that he would be prepared to meet with him, he says such a meeting first has to be prepared. What he means is that you have to coordinate with your allies - all your allies. Secondly, it means you have to check whether you can put together an agenda for a lower-level meeting. If it becomes clear that you can’t put together such an agenda, then you don’t hold a meeting at a high level - the presidential level - because it’s not going to lead anywhere. But if you can produce something that you know will lead somewhere, then it’s silly not to do that.”

“See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.”