“My solution to the problem of unleashing creativity is always to set up a target.”

And then we grow up and learn to blend our innate abilities with the rules or principles we have learned.

Don’t do market research.

I believe people work for satisfaction.

Japanese people tend to be much better adjusted to the notion of work, any kind of work, as honorable.

The important thing in my view is not to pin the blame for a mistake on somebody, but rather to find out what caused the mistake.

The company must not throw money away on huge bonuses for executives or other frivolities but must share its fate with the workers.

When I find an employee who turns out to be wrong for the job,

In the long run, no matter how good or successful you are or how clever or crafty.

I have always made it a point to know our employees, to visit every facility of our company, and to try to meet and know every single employee.

We all learn by imitating, as children, as students, as novices in the world of business.

The best example of this was the Apollo project in the United States.

If you trust your colleague today, he may be your competitor tomorrow, because people frequently move from one company to another.

To create a familylike feeling within the corporation, a feeling that employees and managers share the same fate.

The remarkable thing about management is that a manager can go on for years making mistakes that nobody is aware of, which means that management can be a kind of a con job.

It’s difficult to see new projects to fruition.

(Japanese Government believes that if you have a big laboratory with all the latest equipment and good funding it will automatically lead to creativity. It doesn’t work that way.

Keep a note pad and pencil on your bedside table. Million-dollar ideas sometimes strike at 3 A.M.

I love jotting down ideas for my blog, so I doodle or take notes on all kinds of stuff that inspires me: the people I meet, boutiques I visit, a florist that just gave me a great idea for an interior-design project, things like that.

In order to be creative, you don’t have to be original.

Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.

I wanted to define the vocabulary of a wedding both visually and intellectually. The book is about more than weddings or wedding dresses. It’s a metaphor for women’s lives, their creativity.

Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye.

All truly great art is optimistic. The individual artist is happy in his creative work. The fact that practically all great art is tragic does not in any way change the above thesis.

When I decided to get married at 40, I couldn’t find a dress with the modernity or sophistication I wanted. That’s when I saw the opportunity for a wedding gown business.