“We think the telephone remains one of the greatest brand inventions ever. Where else can you get customers’ undivided attention today?” –Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, St. Petersburg Times, October 19, 2010

“With an estimated 84 billion messages send worldwide each day … it’s sometimes hard to put your finger on the efficiency of e-mail while digging out from a pile of it …. E-mail Backlash 2.0’s features include an overtendency to send it, an inability to respond to it, and a conversation slower than smoke signals. That’s why the telephone is looking ever better these days.” –Jared Sandberg, “Employees Forsake Dreaded E-mail for the Beloved Phone,” The Wall Street Journal, September 26, 2006.

“It is my heart-warm and world-embracing Christmas hope and aspiration that all of us – the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the admired, the despised, the loved, the hated, the civilized, the savage – may eventually be gathered in a heaven of everlasting rest and peace and bliss – except the inventor of the telephone” –Mark Twain, 1890