Some is not a number

Don Berwick, speaking to a room full of hospital administrators at a large industry convention in December 2004:

Here is what I think we should do. I think we should save 100,000 lives. And I think we should do that by June 14, 2006—18 months from today. Some is not a number; soon is not a time. Here’s the number: 100,000. Here’s the time: June 14, 2006—9 a.m.

(Quoted by Chip Heath and Dan Heath in Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard)