It's not clear that being the first-mover will provide the rash of Internet startups a sustainable competitive advantage. Ultimately being right, or better positioned, may be more important than being first.

Startups are unique animals. We take them pretty much for granted out here now, but they are still endeavors that require very different skills from the ones needed in established companies.

Anyone can sail with the wind to his back. Startups usually sail into a stiff wind, leaking like a sieve, in high seas, without food or water.

In the world of startups, angels invest in seed or early-stage deals, and with their money they lend a bit of advice. They pay for the privilege of helping the company.

Good entrepreneurs are passionate visionaries, usually with one or more exceptional talents, but rarely have they actually built a company from scratch.

Deferred Life Plan: Step one: Do what you have to do. Then, eventually — Step two: Do what you want to do

Most business ideas do not find funding. Even the majority of those that are funded—that is, vetted by very smart people who think enough of the ideas to invest in them — ultimately fail.

It's the romance, not the finance that makes business worth pursuing.

Entrepreneurs, in my experience, don't like to be told they're wrong.

The business model can and should change over time, as the world changes.

Business conditions are forever changing. You need to reconsider your strategies and business models constantly and adjust them where necessary.

Business is about nothing if not people.

Silicon Valley veterans share a tacit understanding that what a startup needs isn't one CEO, but three —each at successive stages of the startup's development.

If you turn a visionary startup into an operating company too early, you throw out its birthright. It will never be as big, or as influential as it might otherwise be. It will be much harder, perhaps impossible, to expand the vision later, when performance is being measured, because then there's too much at stake.

Business failures are unfortunate but necessary steps in the search for those few huge successes.

If you're brilliant, 15 to 20 percent of the risk is removed. If you work twenty-four hours a day, another 15 to 20 percent of the risk is removed. The remaining 60 to 70 percent of business risk will be completely out of your control..

Work hard, work passionately, but apply your most precious asset — time — to what is most meaningful to you.

Time is the only resource that matters.

There were a coupla times when I had had it. And when I'm pushed to the limit, I scream.

If people stop being interested, it's because you haven't written a good enough album. Music will always be the most powerful thing. It doesn't matter what record labels or journalists say. It's the song.

I've met Bob Dylan. We did one of those non-handshake handshakes. I was with all guys, and he shook hands with all of them, and then they said, 'And this is Kate,' and I put my hand out, and he didn't put his out. And then I took my hand away, and he put his out. It was one of those. We finally did shake. And then I fainted!

There's only one God. Call him whatever you want.

One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent, e.g., music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf.

Serendipity is the gift of finding agreeable or valuable things not sought for.

I do read P.D. James because she pays much more attention to character, to a particular atmosphere or setting. But most mystery writers, I think, are controlled by the plot.

I like change. I've never really had much consistency in my life, you know, from everyday work to my living situation to whether or not I'm going to be in L.A. The one constant thing in my life is my friends and family, which is all I need.

Being creative is my idea of heaven. I'm just incredibly fortunate that I can do it in artwork. Watercolor is what I started out with. What I love about watercolor is that a lot of happy accidents occur.

I've dubbed myself as an amateur, not because I work in different field, but because I do what I do for love.

I'm not Tom Cruise. Very few British actors are. If you look at the body of work I've done it's pretty obvious I'm not going to make a 'Mission: Impossible.'

Stereotypes should never influence policy or public opinion.

I came to the conclusion that unrealized hopes even small ones were always wrenching.

My dad taught me to never be pigeonholed; to really allow yourself to reinvent characters as they reinvent you; to be bold and to be willing to play seemingly unlikeable people.

As soon as I have got flying to perfection, I have got a scheme about a steam engine.

I am a Communist, a convinced Communist! For some that may be a fantasy. But to me it is my main goal.

I'm quite claustrophobic, and I don't like everyone crowding around and shouting the same questions.

I am special.

I was fascinated by a compelling character embroiled in a controversial topic that told the story from a different point of view.

Somebody said that part of my reaction to British cinema is actually, paradoxically, a patriotic one. I'm so disappointed that we're not better.

Pregnancy was probably the best and the hardest thing Ill ever go through. I know for a lot of women it can be wonderful and relatively easy.

When people call something a 'fail,' it's because you tried to accomplish something but didn't make it. If you're just walking down the street and something bad just happens to you, that's not really a fail on your part. You might call that situation a fail.

My first film was a comedy, but after that I went always into more heavier stuff.

We must give Oklahoma families the opportunity to thrive and prosper. We must give all Oklahomans the tools necessary to pursue the American dream. And then, we must get out of the way.