We were hoping to build a small, profitable company. And of course, what we've done is build a large, unprofitable company.

We will continue to invest in systems, people and product expansion, each of which helps us better serve customers, ... For the rest of 1999, we expect to invest more heavily than we have in the past.

I certainly think it's true that Barnes & Noble is a much, much larger company. I mean, they're a company with almost $3 billion in sales. They have 28,000 employees. Amazon.com has 500 employees.

A company shouldn't get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn't last.

If you only do things where you know the answer in advance, your company goes away.

A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.