Life was easy was back in the days before human resource departments controlled business and someone decided we all should be politically correct.

I came into advertising in 1961. I had been turned down for jobs on the Ford account in the late Fifties as 'not their type.' If it hadn't been for Bill Bernbach, I would now be sitting in some luncheonette, continuing my life as a messenger.

I was the first advertising person who people could identify with.

I came from a poor family in Coney Island. I learned to write by reading the 'Post.' This was my education.

It goes back to all of us wanting to be in Hollywood. We're all dying to win an Oscar.

Thank you for making me nouveau riche.

I'm waiting for the candidate who says, 'I'm keeping things exactly the way they are. I like it this way.'

The object of advertising is to get people to feel better about the product you're selling.

Did I grow up thinking I'd ever be paged at the Beverly Hills Hotel? Did I ever think I'd make so much money writing ads? No.

Pictures bring you inside, whether you see yourself driving a new car or as a hapless prisoner who is being abused.

A lot of its readers are of an age where they forget to cancel.

At one point, I had over 800 employees, and I always paid all health care for my people - including a man who was my assistant who got HIV. I wound up paying his medical bills, which went into the hundreds of thousands. I'm not making myself out to be a saint. I did the right thing.

I'm happy to pay my fair share - which is whatever the tax is right now.

Once you're not No. 1, it doesn't matter where you are.

Good products win out.

There's nothing worse than winning but being told by people that you're losing.

Everybody makes a lot of money when the French come to town.

No kid ever graduated school and said, 'I want to go into advertising.' Advertising is almost everyone's second or third choice.

The bad guys always fight dirty, and the good guys always fight clean.

I've seen very few Hispanics and blacks who have been able to work their way into the advertising end of business.

Let's face it: in advertising, you are paid more, but you die younger. It's not very forgiving. Like sports stars, you're in it during your better years, and then you're out looking for work.

There's still a place for someone to come up with a strong headline, some copy in a commercial that's well written. I'm not saying it was better in the old days; it's just a totally different way of communicating.

I'm careful to pay every single penny on my taxes. I don't have any money offshore.

I don't want people ever to think I'm not in advertising. It's such a business of enthusiasm that if you're not totally excited about it, you should leave it.