“I’m going to go do this crazy thing. I’m going to start this company selling books online.”

Above all else, align with customers. Win when they win. Win only when they win.

Work hard, have fun and make history.

Teachers, who are really good create that environment where you can be very satisfied by the process of learning.

If you double the number of experiments you do per year you’re going to double your inventiveness.

It’s time to go back to the Moon, this time to stay.

If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.

Your brand is formed primarily, not by what your company says about itself, but what the company does.

If you never want to be criticized, for goodness sake don’t do anything new.

If we think long term, we can accomplish things that we couldn’t otherwise accomplish.

Maintain a firm grasp of the obvious at all times.

No business can continue to shrink. That can only go on for so long before irrelevancy sets in.

E-mail has some magical ability to turn off the politeness gene in a human being.

In the old world, you devoted 30% of your time to building a great service and 70% of your time to shouting about it. In the new world, that inverts.

We are our choices. Build yourself a great story.

If you have a business model that relies on customers being misinformed, you better start working on changing your business model.

We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details.

You cannot invent an algorithm that is as good at recommending books as a good bookseller.

Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music.

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

People cannot become truly knowledgeable without being excellent readers.

The love of books is among the choicest gifts of the gods.

I put things down on sheets of paper and stuff them in my pockets. When I have enough, I have a book.

I am a machine condemned to devour books.