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''I don't read my own stuff. Early in the game, if you're new to the press, you read every line. That first article you have in The Berkshire Eagle, you read it all. Now it's a quick brush-by. The bad press attention you get isn't the real you. And it's not the real you when you're the greatest thing since sliced bread, either.''

''I went to see [Governor Michael] Dukakis – we were moving jobs out of Lynn. I said, 'Don't you count precincts and cities, which are for you and which are against you?' 'Of course I do,' he said. I said, 'Guess what, so do we. And people who are positive about us are more likely to get more work.'''

''In some ways, I lived in a fairly insular world. I did not realize how candor is so unseen in the workplace. It's not there. And I didn't realize the enormous 'boss feeling' that exists in corporate America and around the world. It's 'Tell us what to do, boss.' ''

''In the morning we relaxed, and in the afternoon gave a speech [in Warsaw]. In the evening, we went to this great restaurant. The next day, we had guides take us to the Warsaw ghetto – I never really felt the Holocaust the way I felt it there. We also went to a museum and the palace and spent time with the minister of the economy. The next morning, we flew to Vienna and just walked the streets. Bought a great painting for Nantucket at an art shop, had coffee in two different coffee shops. . . . The next day, lunch with the economics minister, which gave me a chance to see the differences between the two countries. That night, we flew to Paris and had a great dinner in this tiny little restaurant. Just shopped and played.''

''Going to Europe was like having the calendar of a dentist – you'd have a 9 o'clock, a 10 o'clock, and so on. In a 10-day trip, we went 10 rounds. Only thing was, they threw in a fresh boxer every round. Every time we'd get off the plane, some eager fellow was there all dressed up and excited with a full agenda for us from 7 a.m. to midnight.''