“It strikes me as bad manners for a magazine to accept one of my advertisements and then attack it editorially – like inviting a man to dinner then spitting in his eye.”

Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn’t sell much of anything.

Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.

Many manufacturers secretly question whether advertising really sells their product, but are vaguely afraid that their competitors might steal a march on them if they stopped.

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.

I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination.

You now have to decide what ‘image’ you want for your brand. Image means personality. Products, like people, have personalities, and they can make or break them in the market place.

What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.

Like a midwife, I make my living bringing new babies into the world, except that mine are new advertising campaigns.

Never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your family to read. You wouldn’t tell lies to your own wife. Don’t tell them to mine.

Some manufacturers illustrate their advertisements with abstract paintings. I would only do this if I wished to conceal from the reader what I was advertising.

Advertising reflects the mores of society, but it does not influence them.

The secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years.

The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything.

On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.

I did not feel ‘evil’ when I wrote advertisements for Puerto Rico. They helped attract industry and tourists to a country which had been living on the edge of starvation for 400 years.

Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.

The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle.

I am here and I’m alive. That’s enough.

There’s no freedom like the freedom that comes from accepting yourself.

A lie doesn’t become truth, wrong doesn’t become right and evil doesn’t become good, just because it’s accepted by a majority.

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.

It is unacceptable to be disrespectful of Congressman Crowley. He’s done some phenomenal, phenomenal work for the Bronx and Queens.

Focus on loving and accepting others more than your own need to be loved and accepted by others.

I thought I should forget Hollywood and go back to Hong Kong. I’m so lucky that finally Hollywood accepts my comedy fighting.