The movies are the only business where you can go out front and applaud yourself.

If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help… Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

I’m in this business to be creative – I’ll even diminish it and say to be a content provider.

People in Ethiopia, the Sudan, etc., don’t know Audrey Hepburn, but they recognize the name UNICEF. When they see UNICEF, their faces light up, because they know that something is happening. In the Sudan, for example, they call a water pump ‚UNICEF.‘

I hope when I’m dead I’ll be considered an icon, though.

Every successful businessman will have experienced set-backs and failures – they’re lying if they say they haven’t. Virgin has had some tremendously successful businesses and some that have not quite worked out. Virgin Cola springs to mind – the product wasn’t distinct enough from Coca-Cola.

I would love to sign on to do a movie if it was the right role and if it was the right script, because I would be taking time away from music to tell a big grand story, and spend all of my time and pouring all of my emotions into being someone else. So for me to do that, it would have to be a story worth telling.

I think the form, the Hollywood movie, I think the quality is obviously always going to be there and I think that the question of taste, there’s always a question of taste.

There is something that is much more scarce, something finer far, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.

Netscape was able to get the government working on its behalf.

The business aspect is one of the most important things about having a music career, because every choice you make in a management meeting affects your life a year-and-a-half from now.

Microsoft has had two goals in the last 10 years. One was to copy the Mac, and the other was to copy Lotus‘ success in the spreadsheet – basically, the applications business. And over the course of the last 10 years, Microsoft accomplished both of those goals. And now they are completely lost.

If you don’t understand the details of your business you are going to fail.

I never said I was the best in anything. I never said I’m an icon. The world decides all of that.

The last thing you want to do is raise taxes in the middle of the recession because that would just suck up and take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.

I don’t understand what it’s all about or what’s worth what, but if the people in the Swedish Academy decide that x, y or z wins the Nobel Prize, then so be it.

There’s Madeleine, and then there’s ‚Madeleine Albright‘. And I sometimes kind of think, who is this person? Once you become ‚Madeleine Albright‘ it doesn’t go away.

The Web and new technology offer more opportunities to reach a world market at a lower price. Today, a person can start a business at home and reach the world market.

When the first big paycheque with ‚Dumb And Dumber‘ hit, I went: ‚Gosh, I wonder if this will affect my performance. Will I do a take and think, was that worth $7 million?‘ But that never happened. If anything, it made me rebel against that thing when people who get rich start playing it safe.

There are so many men and women who hold no distinctive positions but whose contribution towards the development of society has been enormous.

All I can do is try to create my own brand and have people appreciate me for that.

People invest in businesses that they believe have the leadership, mission and team to grow and operate profitably.

I personally don’t like to go see romantic comedies. But people do want to see them, and they seem to want to see me in them.

Movies are not novels, and that’s why, when filmmakers try to adapt novels, particularly long or complex novels, the result is almost always failure. It can’t be done.

It’s very intense to be in front of a live audience. It’s just an amazing experience. It’s dangerous. Everything out there is heightened. The bad stuff is extra-worse. The silences are extra-silent. The good stuff is amazing. It’s electric when you walk out there. For 90 minutes, you’re on this other planet.

I’ve always loved the showmanship of professional wrestling. While I love making movies, I love that platform, too.

We give speeches and pin ribbons onto uniforms, etch names into walls. And all that is fine, but too often, all those tributes, all those words aren’t always backed up by action. And that felt like such a stark contrast to me, because, as we all know, our military is all about action.

In the United States, I am a great success, but I am not a celebrity.

The one thing about the business of entertainment is that you have to learn patience.

It’s no secret that we were sticking just about every nickel we had on the chance that people would really be interested in something totally new and unique in the field of entertainment.

I now have two different audiences. There’s the one that has been watching my action films for 20 years, and the American family audience. American jokes, less fighting.

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.

Most men are individuals no longer so far as their business, its activities, or its moralities are concerned. They are not units but fractions.

As far as a glass ceiling, I feel that all you can do is give it your absolute best with whatever gifts the universe has given you. And if you make it in some way that other people can recognize, that’s fine. But even if you don’t quote-unquote make it, you’re fine if you’ve given it your whole heart and soul.

No one has a greater asset for his business than a man’s pride in his work.

I’ve never gone into business to make money. Every Virgin product and service has been made into a reality to make a positive difference in people’s lives. And by focusing on the happiness of our customers, we have been able to build a successful group of companies.

Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it’s not going to get the business.

When I started my last business, I didn’t receive a paycheck for 13 months. The average person can’t handle that pressure.

If I close my eyes and think of Hollywood, all I see is one big varicose vein.

It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is.

If cash comes with fame, come fame; if cash comes without fame, come cash.

I love music, and after my first experience with movies, I can’t wait to do more.

Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability.

A live concert to me is exciting because of all the electricity that is generated in the crowd and on stage. It’s my favorite part of the business, live concerts.

For the first time we’re allowing developers who don’t work at Facebook to develop applications just as if they were. That’s a big deal because it means that all developers have a new way of doing business if they choose to take advantage of it. There are whole companies that are forming whose only product is a Facebook Platform application.

I knew no one who’d ever been in the public eye.

The career of a sage is of two kinds: He is either honored by all in the world, Like a flower waving its head, Or else he disappears into the silent forest.

Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.

I am a child but I have to think and act like a woman, this business forces you to.

When I got into this, I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me, I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor, and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

Sometimes, wearing a scarf and a polo coat and no makeup and with a certain attitude of walking, I go shopping or just look at people living. But then, you know, there will be a few teenagers who are kind of sharp, and they’ll say, ‚Hey, just a minute. You know who I think that is?‘ And they’ll start tailing me. And I don’t mind.

No greater nor more affectionate honor can be conferred on an American than to have a public school named after him.

At the major studios, you see people wanting to remake a TV series, wanting to make a sequel.

At the end of the day, I want to be part of the same conversation as Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappelle, Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor.

That’s something that is almost accidental at the beginning of a career, but the more you write, the more trained you are to recognize the little signals.

If you want to be a Millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline.

As a sportsperson, the best thing is people recognising you and loving you for what you do. For me, glamour is 100 people in the hotel feeling happy to see you.

Don’t work for recognition, but do work worthy of recognition.

In many ways, when you’re a Nobel peace laureate, you have an obligation to humankind, to society.

My mother used to tell me man gives the award, God gives the reward. I don’t need another plaque.