The disappointing second novel is measured against the brilliant first novel – often no novel lives up to the first. Literary improvement seems like an unfair expectation. – Billy Collins
Electric cars are not going to take the market by storm, but it’s going to be a gradual improvement. – Carlos Ghosn
We are more thoroughly an enlightened people, with respect to our political interests, than perhaps any other under heaven. Every man among us reads, and is so easy in his circumstances as to have leisure for conversations of improvement and for acquiring information. – Benjamin Franklin
The best security for civilization is the dwelling, and upon properly appointed and becoming dwellings depends, more than anything else, the improvement of mankind. – Benjamin Disraeli
He who busies himself with things other than improvement of his own self becomes perplexed in darkness and entangled in ruin. His evil spirits immerse him deep in vices and make his bad actions seem handsome. – Ali ibn Abi Talib
We’re the largest home improvement company today, and we did $30 billion last year, or less than 10 percent of the total amount of building materials sold in the U.S. So when people ask, how much runway left does Home Depot have, it’s an awful lot. – Arthur Blank
I love theater work because of the immediate effect your performance has on the audience. And I love the repetition; I love getting on the same stage for more than a month and reciting the same lines, trying to make a small or large step towards an improvement in my acting. – Alfred Molina
We need improvement in the style of performance. There is no more advantage in a musician who plays and conducts than in one who is only a beater of rhythm. – Franz Liszt
Boeing just took $20 billion and 10 years to improve the efficiency of their planes by 10 percent. That’s pretty lame. I have a design in mind for a vertical liftoff supersonic jet that would be a really big improvement. – Elon Musk
By the fall of 2007, my last remaining Iraqi friend in Baghdad had left. Once he was gone, my connection to the country and the war began to thin, even as the terror diminished. I missed the improvement that came with the surge, and so, in my nervous system, I never quite registered it. – George Packer
Reading off a Teleprompter is an easy skill to do passably well and a difficult skill to do very well. I still have room for improvement there. I still talk too fast and I’m trying to slow myself down. – Chris Hayes
Whenever I am among my fellow Governors, I am struck by how many face the same education improvement issues. – Ernie Fletcher
The confounding Political Economy with the Sciences and Arts to which it is subservient, has been one of the principal obstacles to its improvement. – Nassau William Senior
Seven innings, three starts in a row, that’s an improvement for me, and that’s what I want to do: be out there in the game longer. – Drew Pomeranz
Are black people conscious of how excruciatingly self-conscious white people have become in their every interaction with black people? Is this self-consciousness an improvement? Maybe not, because I’m thinking of people in categories rather than as people, which is a famously dangerous thing to do. – David Shields
So China will be having to make some choices as to whose side it wants to be on. Hopefully, this will be the beginning of a major improvement in our relationship with them, if they choose correctly. – Fred Thompson
SpaceX is only 12 years old now. Between now and 2040, the company’s lifespan will have tripled. If we have linear improvement in technology, as opposed to logarithmic, then we should have a significant base on Mars, perhaps with thousands or tens of thousands of people. – Elon Musk
There is no single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself promises even one order-of-magnitude improvement within a decade in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity. – Fred Brooks
It’s important to air your concerns and fears with someone you trust. When you’re honest about how you can change and grow, and where your weaknesses are, then you open the door for improvement and change. – Matt Dillon
I guess when there is room to improve, and where there is the desire to improve, improvement comes. – David McNeill
I see little alteration at Lyons since I formerly passed through it. Its manufactories are, nevertheless, flourishing, though less improvement than could be expected is visible in the external aspect of the place. – Marguerite Gardiner
Americans cannot realize how many chances for mental improvement they lose by their inveterate habit of keeping six conversations when there are twelve in the room. – Ernest Dimnet
Political chaos is connected with the decay of language… one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. – George Orwell
After I’ve sent my revised draft to my agent and editor, they suggest more improvement sand again, this revision phase can take anywhere from a few hours to a few months. – Margaret Haddix
Without a doubt, stem cell research will lead to the dramatic improvement in the human condition and will benefit millions of people. – Eli Broad
The little religion that I have clung to-that what matters most is the continuity of life, and its improvement from one generation to another. – David O. Selznick
Social improvement is attained more readily by a concern with the quality of results than with the purity of motives. – Eric Hoffer