"I'll spend half an hour trying to get $6 back from Verizon, but the deli is the valve that lets the pressure off, the place where you just shrug and let a little money go for no better reason than that there are other people behind you in line and it just seems like too much of a hassle, and since you're there everyday, it might just come back to you sometime anyway."

"Companies continue to insulate their executives, further removing them from market forces in which they must compete. Compensation packages increasingly contain only upside features--giving plenty of incentive as the company grows, but providing no downside if the executive fails. Well, other than paying him off and sending him on his way to his next corporate victim."

"Don't equate happiness with money. People adapt to income shift relatively quickly, the long lasting benefits are essentially zero."