I’m not itching to sue Amazon or Wal-Mart… they sell a lot of books. But the future is very uncertain with books.
The human species was not born into a market economy. Bees won’t sell you honey if you offer them an electronic funds transfer. The human species imagined money into existence, and it exists – for us, not mice or wasps – because we go on believing in it.
We buy and sell goods. We buy low and sell higher – that’s what we all do to make a profit. But I consider a merchant someone who has a certain intuition and instinct, and – very important – knows how to run a business, knows the numbers.
Energy companies, such as Chevron and Shell, and oil producing countries, such as Kuwait and Venezuela, pump crude oil from their vast land holdings and sell it on the world market.
I do remember the moment when, as a child, I realized that the things we call ‘TV shows’ are really just the stuff that gets put between commercials. Later, I came to see that the kinds of things that get on ‘free’ TV are shows that help sell products.
Once you start trying to sell creativity, you’re always going to run into the problem that the people selling it aren’t as creative as the people making it, and the people making it don’t know how to talk business with the people trying to sell it.
Bono is my inspiration – not only as a rock star but as a humanitarian. We aren’t just put on this earth to sell records. Maybe it’s because of my upbringing, but I do consider myself a moral guy.
I grew up in the day when the Beatles sold 1 million singles in a week. And all you’ve got to do now is sell about 10,000 singles and you’re in the charts.
For acting, classes are a necessity, but for modeling it’s really just knowing who you are and knowing how to sell yourself.
I did a pilot for Anything But Love in 1988 that didn’t sell.
‘The X-Files’ was a hard sell because people didn’t know what it was. The network didn’t understand what it was that they were buying, and at the beginning, they wanted us to have closure. They wanted us to put the cuffs on the bad guy at the end of each episode.
Shopping in Thailand is super cheap and generally high quality. Bangkok is also safe. If you see anybody wearing camouflage holding a machete, don’t be scared. They sell coconuts.
If I cut an album now and sell it for ten bucks, I can put seven dollars and fifty cents in my pocket.
Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn’t sell much of anything.
So when these people sell out, even though they get fabulously rich, they’re gypping themselves out of one of the potentially most rewarding experiences of their unfolding lives. Without it, they may never know their values or how to keep their newfound wealth in perspective.
I would never know how to sell myself as a sex symbol. That’s not how I’m programmed.
Even in a bad market, location, location, location is a way to still buy and sell property.
I don’t think the government is out to get me or help someone else get me but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were out to sell me something or help someone else sell me something. I mean, why else would the Census Bureau want to know my telephone number?
I have a definite talent for convincing people to try something new. I am a good salesman. When I’m on form, I can sell anything.
I mean, I wasn’t stupid. I knew we’d make money and sell a lot of Dune books.
I couldn’t sell water in a desert. I have no business acumen. I can tell you why you have no business acumen, and I can tell you why your project may or may not work, but I have no ability to make money.
From the time that I was a child, I loved interacting with people. I would go around door-to-door and sell candies and gift-wrapping paper, and it was a great way to interact with people and communicate with people.
I am not unaware that leaders betray, and sell out, and play false.
It’s a Japanese way of thinking, that I give value for my merchandise. So I don’t want to sell unnecessarily expensive dresses and make just 10 or 20 and then feel satisfied. I want to design for real women who can afford my dresses.
What I regret most after becoming a cartoonist is having used my real name. At first, I figured there was no way I’d sell anyhow, so I didn’t even consider using a pen name.
I’d like to retire at 50 but I don’t want to sell papers in the middle of London on a Zimmer.
The first two books that I did by myself were long stories in verse. I knew I could do that because I’d written a lot in verse. But, verse stories are hard to sell, so my editor encouraged me to try writing in prose.
I’m not trying to sound pretentious, but we did sell 12 million records on the first album, so we did get paid a little bit.
We will also allow state companies to sell shares to their workers and will pass a law allowing citizens to start companies of their own with no limits on the number of employees or on the firm’s output.
I feel that David took a risk with me. I have a sense that by starting off in the theatre and going off to do films you are seen to sell out in some way. I don’t hold truck with that, but you can’t stop people from feeling it.
‘Quality’ means what will sell and do a customer some good – at least try to.
Very early on in the process of trying to sell ‘The Summer Prince,’ I was told, ‘Slavery seems to be very important to this society – is that on purpose?’ Well, duh.
I always have sort of been someone who has contradictory parts, and I haven’t tried to uncomplicate myself. I’ve sort of let things seem contradictory, and sometimes it really confuses people. I don’t know if it’s working all the time, but I’d rather do that than try to sell myself as one thing or another.
In the Mac vs. PC ads, Apple bills itself as the antidote to Microsoft. To love Apple wasn’t to sell out. It was to buy in. Most people use PCs, but Apple has the mindshare.
If you want to sell the most records, duet with me. If you need someone to come in and bless your record sales, I’m your man.
Sell yourself first, if you want to sell anything.
It’s hard to sell a brand without having a face to it.
In the fashion world, you have to make clothes to sell. You have to make clothes for the press. You have to make clothes for yourself. What I mean is, everything is an obligation. But a writer? A pure artist? Maybe he doesn’t make one lira – but he does what he wants.
Selecting what gets sold in smaller shops and online is a long and artful process, it takes precision and care. The people who stock the successful vintage shops are great buyers, and you pay for their skill as well as the quality level at which they sell their clothes.
Drag is involved with changing identities and not taking identities too seriously at all. That’s why drag is such a hard sell to a network – or anyone, really – because it’s up against the ego.
If DreamWorks and Disney need that name to sell the cartoon and get people in the seats, that’s what they need. It’s not fair, but there’s plenty of other work for us to do.
One of the things I think I can do in my lifetime is stop to remind myself that – and keep affirming that – women can sell movies.
If you don’t want my God here, you don’t want me here either. God has been too good to me to go and try to sell out to get some money.
The sexiest thing in the entire world is being really smart. And being thoughtful and being generous. Everything else is crap. I promise you. It’s just crap that people try to sell to you to make you feel like less. So don’t buy it. Be smart. Be thoughtful and be generous.
I’m a complete globalist. I think like a global CEO. But I’m an American. I run an American company. But in order for GE to be successful in the coming years, I’ve gotta sell my products in every corner of the world.
The choices for me now are completely creative. I know, when I’m going to make a record, it ain’t going to sell.
Let’s make what Americans buy. Buy what Americans make. And sell it to the world.
The sex element is the most important in the business. You must sell sex.
You can say Pizza Hut is terrible pizza, but they also sell more pizzas than anybody else.
Sometimes I wouldn’t give an interview because I didn’t have the time or something else was more important. So they come up with a story which I don’t think is always true, but they have to sell papers.
We were ready to launch Barry White, but the record company wouldn’t put it out. Said it wouldn’t sell.
I raise quarter horses. Mine are mostly thoroughbred cross horses, a little bigger horses than some people like. I sell them or use them on the ranch. A lot of them go to the rodeo arena and some of them go to racetracks.
And friends of mine that had photography class in high school would develop the film and make prints and I’d take them back to the track and give ’em away or try and sell them. Much to my parents’ dismay, I majored in photography in college.
I stopped beating up on myself. I stopped asking myself why I didn’t sell this number of records, why I don’t have corporate sponsorship. I just don’t buy into any of that anymore.
Man, he could sell. As he liked to say, he lived at the intersection of technology and liberal arts. But there was a more personal side of Steve Jobs, of course, and I was fortunate enough to see a bit of it because I spent hours in conversation with him over the 14 years he ran Apple.
