Bureaucratic Processes Quotes

I'm addicted to picking my nose. In a world of red tape and bureaucracy, where it takes forever to buy a house or get a cell-phone plan going, it's so instant to just stick your finger up there and go for something your own body produces.

The thing about local government is they want to hear what local people think, but for the most part, their systems are so long, dull and bureaucratic that people only get involved when there's an issue they really care about.

All companies have a culture, some companies have discipline, but few companies have a culture of discipline. When you have disciplined people, you don't need hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought, you don't need bureaucracy. When you have disciplined action, you don' t need excessive controls. When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great performance.

The way the Army does things is sometimes a little strange.

A government operates and acts differently than a company. So all we want to do is get some transparency here and then determine if the deal should go forward.

In government and out, there are vast realms of the bureaucracy dedicated to seeking more information, in perpetuity if need be, in order to avoid taking action.

Should the foreign service continue to insist on a “well-rounded” officer which results in men who know little about any specific areas or functional field—but who are experts at surviving bureaucracy?

Getting small things like Visa or driving licence should be made easier as we, in financial service sectors, are dealing with financial regulations and tax constraints.

An administration, like a machine, does not create. It carries on.

High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make.

Heaven is purpose, principle, and people. Purgatory is paper and procedure. Hell is rules and regulations.

When I visit local communities, people often complain that they need the approval of several dozen government departments to get something done or to start a business, and people are quite frustrated about this.

The right way to deal with the bureaucracy is to get close to it—to use it.

Only with our government are you given a certificate at birth, a license at marriage, and a bill at death.

We have this idea of bureaucracy in local government, and it's generally things that we're frustrated at. It doesn't work the way we like it to work.

The German passion for bureaucracy -- for written and signal forms . . . to move about, to work, to exist -- is like a steel pin pinning each French individual to a sheet of paper, the way an entomologist pins each specimen insect . . .

Why do we go through all the nonsense with security at our airport? It's not because the Catholic Church is falling apart.

National security is a place where the private sector could be helpful because the government is woefully behind the technology curve. But secondly, the bureaucratic processes that have been in place since 9/11 are woefully inadequate as well.

I'm a novelist, and idle speculation is what novelists do. How odd to spend one's life trying to pretend that non-existent people are real: though no odder, I suppose, than what government bureaucrats do, which is trying to pretend that real people are non-existent.