Jill Konrath

Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn’t sell much of anything.

One client didn’t want to go out so had us build him a nightclub in his house.

I may be kindly, I am ordinarily gentle, but in my line of business I am obliged to will terribly what I will at all.

Everything I do in life is framed through the view of a businessman. That’s my instinct. If I go into a pharmacy to buy shaving cream, then I’m going to look for the best deal on shaving cream.

I have very good executives and great children. They’re very good.

If I had to think where I could live if not Moscow, London would be my first choice and second would be New York.

It’s all too easy to miss out on the important moments in life because you’re too busy staring at your phone.

Anyone who criticises me for talking about fair trade is a few pebbles short of a beach. Because everyone should care about it, just like everyone should care about the environment, because we all live here.

The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything.

[On Laura Nyro] I said to Laura ‘You know Laura, I think we should sell your music publishing company. I think right now is the right time you have three songs in the top ten this may never happen again and I think we can get a lot of money for it.’ And I made a deal with Clive Davis to sell Tuna Fish Music for $4 million. And that was a hell of a lot of money in 1969. It made her famous, it made her rich. It got people to listen to her music with her singing.

I remember flying in, driving down 101 in a cab, and passing by all these tech companies like Yahoo! I remember thinking, ‘Maybe someday we’ll build a company. This probably isn’t it, but one day we will.’

I used to be able to read memo’s upside down… It was like going to the college of the entertainment business.

A store’s best advertisement is the service its goods render, for upon such service rest the future, the good-will, of an organization.

Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it. Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.

Like a midwife, I make my living bringing new babies into the world, except that mine are new advertising campaigns.