Our people, our shareholders, me, Bill Gates, we expect to change the world in every way, to succeed wildly at everything we touch, to have the broadest impact of any company in the world.

We will make our products work out of the box.

I don't know what a monopoly is until somebody tells me.

Google's not a real company. It's a house of cards.

I think it would be absolutely reckless and irresponsible for anyone to try and break up Microsoft.

Look at the product pipeline, look at the fantastic financial results we've had for the last five years. You only get that kind of performance on the innovation side, on the financial side, if you're really listening and reacting to the best ideas of the people we have.

Our people, our shareholders, me, Bill Gates, we expect to change the world in every way, to succeed wildly at everything we touch, to have the broadest impact of any company in the world.

Our mail product, Hotmail, is the market leader globally.

I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life.

And then you take a look at Spaces, there is this great innovation that came out of nowhere. We have the number one blogging site in the world because of the innovation that's there.

The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.

Great companies have high cultures of accountability, it comes with this culture of criticism I was talking about before, and I think our culture is strong on that.

I think our leadership team is a highly accountable leadership team.

Our company has to be a company that enables its people.

My children - in many dimensions they're as poorly behaved as many other children, but at least on this dimension I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod.

Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.

Certainly, we continue to bring in new people. We'll hire, net new, over 4,000 people this year, and attract great people into the company. I'm very bullish about the employee base and what it can accomplish.

So, I think the output of our innovation is great. We have a culture of self-improvement. I know we can continue to improve. There is no issue. But at the same time, our absolute level of output is fantastic.

We don't have a monopoly. We have market share. There's a difference.

I come back to the same thing: We've got the greatest pipeline in the company's history in the next 12 months, and we've had the most amazing financial results possible over the last five years, and we're predicting being back at double-digit revenue growth in fiscal year '06.

All companies of any size have to continue to push to make sure you get the right leaders, the right team, the right people to be fast acting, and fast moving in the marketplace. We've got great leaders, and we continue to attract and promote great new leaders.

Great companies in the way they work, start with great leaders.

We can believe that we know where the world should go. But unless we're in touch with our customers, our model of the world can diverge from reality. There's no substitute for innovation, of course, but innovation is no substitute for being in touch, either.

I'm very, very bullish about our prospects, and as I tell our board, as I tell our employees, this is the time to invest. There's so much opportunity. Let's just invest in that opportunity, and really get after it.

What we've gone through in the last several years has caused some people to question 'Can we trust Microsoft?'

I have lots of sources of information about what's going on at the company. I think I have a pretty good pulse on where we are and what people are thinking.

We've grown from 18% of the profits of the top 25 companies in our industry to 23% of the profits of the top 25 companies in our industry over the last five years. Profits are up over 70%, where the industry profit is up about 35%. Pretty good.

I'm not sure blogs are necessarily the best place to get a pulse on anything. People want to blog for a variety of reasons, and that may or may not be representative.

Accessible design is good design.

If we see an opportunity in the software/hardware seam, we're going to take it.

The NBA has made it clear they want fan bases to be able to keep their teams.

Computer science is the operating system for all innovation.

It's how tenacious you are that will determine your success.

We have a tenacity and a persistence and patience to stay after it and stay after it and stay after it.

We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.

I must stress here the point that I appreciate clarity, order, meaning, structure, rationality: they are necessary to whatever provisional stability we have, and they can be the agents of gradual and successful change.

Excuses change nothing, but make everyone feel better.

So, first you have to be able to play with a metronome. Then you take your freedom. If you play in an orchestra, you got to watch the conductor, he is like a metronome, but it is more difficult because he can change rhythms.

I wouldn't change Buffy for anything and I wouldn't change the course in which she has evolved but it is nice to be able to do something that is a little different.

For example, UNICEF works with governments to change legislation such as in India where a law was passed raising the age of compulsory school completion to keep children in school and away from the workplace for longer.

Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue.

I still feel that a movie has to attempt to say something - even if it fails miserably. But I've sort of given up on believing that I'm going to change the world with every film I choose to act in.

Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while.

You don't have to be the Dalai Lama to tell people that life's about change.

I knew that my staying up would not change the election result if I were defeated, while if elected I had a hard day ahead of me. So I thought a night's rest was best in any event.

It will always be a battle a day between those who want maximum change and those who want to maintain the status quo.

Being a father, well, I don't know if this is a change, but it makes me want to get out of here faster. Get off the clock. Just 'cause the baby is my reason for living, my reason for coming to work.

A liberal knows that the only certainty in this life is change but believes that the change can be directed toward a constructive end.

I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.