Outwork Them Past Midnight

“Part of Thornton's success in negotiations, too, can be traced to stamina. "Tex would just plain wear the other side out," a colleague told me. "He'd keep a bargaining session going all day and beyond midnight. Then, while the others were knocking off a few hours sleep, Tex would lie down for bodily rest only, staying awake and letting his mind sustain its fierce concentration. By breakfast time, his thinking had so far outstripped the opposition that they were glad to agree to almost anything out of groggy exhaustion."”

“He preached and practiced the theory that if you're drown- ing thirty feet from shore, a fifty-foot rope is better than a twenty-five-foot rope. If he needed three men, he'd ask for five. If a rush job could be finished on Wednesday instead of Thursday by slaving all night, you didn't go to bed.”