Scott Adams

I'm not happy on vacation. In those rare times when I have three hours with no work I have to do, I'm terribly uncomfortable.

For most people, it's easy to be passionate about things that are working out, and that distorts our impression of the importance of passion. I've been involved in several dozen business ventures over the course of my life, and each one made me excited at the start. You might even call it passion.

Success is entirely accessible, even if you happen to be a huge screw-up 95 percent of the time.

If you have any trouble sounding condescending, find a Unix user to show you how it's done.

When you hire that first person, then you're a boss. You've got performance reviews. You've got complaints about not making enough money. You've got people who are just going to sell your story to the tabloids.

I'm a poor artist. Through brute force, I brought myself up to mediocre. I've never taken a writing class, but I can write okay.

I try to avoid giving advice.

I respectfully decline the invitation to join your hallucination.

I would sometimes sit in a crowded restaurant, and say, 'You know, I'm the only person in this restaurant who can't draw.'

Let's form proactive synergy restructuring teams.

When times are bad, the gloves come off and employers are less nice. People become disposable.

I've tried lots of things. The reality is, I'm excited by everything on Day 1. And if by Day X things aren't working the way I hoped, I lose my passion. I have not seen the correlation between my passion and my success.

Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems.

Most success springs from an obstacle or failure. I became a cartoonist largely because I failed in my goal of becoming a successful executive.

I don't get embarrassed by the same things that other people do. I would say that probably the biggest thing that holds people back is, 'If I do this, I'm going to look like an idiot if it doesn't work out.'

I had several different bosses during the early years of 'Dilbert.' They were all pretty sure I was mocking someone else.

One strategy for getting ahead is being incredibly good at a particular skill; you need to be world-class to stand out for that skill. In my case, I layered fairly average skills together until the combination became special.

I try to manage my day by my circadian rhythms because the creativity is such an elusive thing, and I could easily just stomp over it doing my administrative stuff.

My investments have been hurt.

I've always defined myself not as a cartoonist, but as an entrepreneur. That was true before I tried cartooning. I always imagined cartooning would be how I got my seed capital. I always thought my other businesses would be the less dominant part of my life.