Go for the gold: better one great column and some undistinguished ones than constant mediocrity.

I've spent my career trying to help people without connections understand what's going on so that they have a chance of getting a fair shake from the connected and the powerful.

I wanted to be a columnist so badly that I took a huge pay cut to leave Forbes, which wouldn't give me a column, and join Newsday, which wanted my column for its Sunday business section.

Go for the gold: better one great column and some undistinguished ones than constant mediocrity.

Report, report, report. Dig, dig, dig. Think, think, think. Don't stop being a reporter because you've become a columnist.

If the government decides to put your life under a microscope, do you think it won't find something? I suspect there's not an adult in the country who would walk away totally unscathed if every aspect of his or her life were investigated the way Stewart's ImClone trading was.

People are treating the Stewart case as seriously as Enron when it's really over trivia.

The lesson that any thinking person draws from the Stewart saga is that when the government asks questions, run for your lawyer and don't say a word. Had Stewart kept her mouth shut, she'd be OK.

It's easy to write a good column if you've got good information. It's hard if you have to depend on style alone. I suppose there are people who can get away with styling on a regular basis. I'm not one of them. You're probably not, either.

Don't commit to being a columnist unless you're willing to do it right. Report your behind off, so you have something original and useful to say. Say it in a way that will interest someone other than you, your family and your sources.

I grew up in an environment of jokes and sarcasm and puns. I talk that way, so I write that way.

Teamwork is better than isolation, especially for a columnist.

The column's worked out great for me. I've gotten a ton of ego satisfaction, had a lot of fun, won a batch of prizes and occasionally done some public good.

When I started writing a business column 15 years ago, I knew I'd found the perfect job for myself. As a columnist I could pick my own topic, do my own analysis, say what I wanted to say and attribute it to myself. Best of all, I could write in my own voice.

Nothing is as approved as mediocrity, the majority has established it and it fixes it fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.

Virtue is defined to be mediocrity, of which either extreme is vice.

The present reeks of mediocrity and the atom bomb.

Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.

There is a real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment.

Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.

Go for the gold: better one great column and some undistinguished ones than constant mediocrity.

There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, public speaking.

Being famous is not something that would make me feel successful - unless one was striving for mediocrity.

Good behavior is the last refuge of mediocrity.

Creative Artists Agency put together a project of extraordinary mediocrity and colossal stupidity. Otherwise, it was great.

There is nothing in the world that I loathe more than group activity, that communal bath where the hairy and slippery mix in a multiplication of mediocrity.

Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity.

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.

We have no Arab intellectuals of international stature because we live in a state of generalized mediocrity. We are suspended in the pit without touching the bottom.

Any corporate policy and plan which is typical of the industry is doomed to mediocrity. Where this is not so, it should be possible to demonstrate that all other competitors are at a distinct disadvantage.

The world doesn't need any more mediocrity or hedged bets.

I try to keep an open mind but I'm so tired of the mediocrity.

The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.

There is an infinite difference between a little wrong and just right, between fairly good and the best, between mediocrity and superiority.

Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.

Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best.

Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity. The lessons of the ordinary are everywhere. Truly profound and original insights are to be found only in studying the exemplary.

The function of a genius is not to give new answers, but to pose new questions which time and mediocrity can resolve.

Mechanization best serves mediocrity.

In America, I would say New York and New Orleans are the two most interesting food towns. In New Orleans, they don't have a bad deli. There's no mediocrity accepted.

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.

The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.

The difference between greatness and mediocrity is often how an individual views a mistake.

Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.

There is always a heavy demand for fresh mediocrity. In every generation the least cultivated taste has the largest appetite.

Mediocrity would always win by force of numbers, but it would win only more mediocrity.

In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.

Perseverance - a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.

A common danger tends to concord. Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In Communism, inequality comes from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence.