Graydon Carter Quotes

When you compete with Wal-Mart, even if you think you've found a niche don't ever become complacent.

The paradox explored in my book 'The Innovator's Dilemma' is that successful companies can fail by making the 'right' decisions in the wrong situations.

It's a piece of cake until you get to the top. You find you can't stop playing the game the way you've always played it.

In a maturing market it's not advisable to be always everybody's darling, because you get too thin.

When you rest on your laurels is right when you have the risk. It exists for every company, no matter how big.

I am the largest market shareholder of clothing in the U.K. and I am not a destination shop for food. If the clothing market is affected - and it has been - and I hold my market share mathematically, then fine, I am doing no worse than the market is doing, which is exactly the case, but I'm losing revenue.

The annals of business are filled with stories of companies that thought they had it made and could milk their enterprises without having to bother about improving their products or services. It's amazing how fast they found their markets disappearing.

There just doesn't seem to be a market for something with aspiration anymore.

I think right now the jury is out on where and how much profit is available in the consumer electronics industry, because if you look at the current consumer electronics players, the biggest ones on the planet struggle to make profit consistently.

If being the biggest company was a guarantee of success, we'd all be using IBM computers and driving GM cars.

There's competition everywhere.

Woe, to think about having success in your pocket.

Retail businesses have narrow margins. If you cut off a flow of young consumers, it's only a matter of time before the businesses struggle and fail.

The biggest cost of my business is competition - promoters bidding against each other to get a tour.

People love Twinkies, and everyone knows about them, yet Hostess went bankrupt. Attention and commercial success have an uncertain relationship in business.

Producers do not seem to understand that they are cutting into each other's business. They complete their films at the same time and do not space their releases.

The want of an international Copy-Right Law, by rendering it nearly impossible to obtain anything from the booksellers in the wayof remuneration for literary labor, has had the effect of forcing many of our very best writers into the service of the Magazines and Reviews.

If you gave me $100 billion and said take away the soft drink leadership of Coca-Cola in the world, I'd give it back to you and say it can't be done.

The States has more publishers and a wider range of aesthetics but so much more competition - the amount of writers vying for the same spot as you is staggering. I think they're different challenges, but equally frustrating when you're trying to get your foot in the door.

One must never miss an opportunity of quoting things by others which are always more interesting than those one thinks up oneself.

When you have any kind of success in life, that's like the most dangerous moment that you're in because you're going to tend to think wow, I can just keep repeating what I've done. I'm a great person. People love me. All of the sudden they're giving me all of this attention. You get drunk on it and you lose your sense of balance and your sense of detachment. I know it's happened to me.

A lot of people just capitulate and say, "Well, that's just the way things are." I think that can be deadly for creative people.

I'm very primitive in terms of economics. The kind of new business in which stock gets more valuable because the company grows, but there must be limits to growth. But if publishing is expanding to fill that retail space, it seems like there may be a necessary and unpleasant correction waiting down the road. How many books to people WANT?

Something in human nature causes us to start slacking off at our moment of greatest accomplishment. As you become successful, you will need a great deal of self-discipline not to lose your sense of balance, humility and commitment.

I decided to make my living as a magazine writer. And I found that it was really easy and fun.