States With Most Firms On Fastest-Growing List

OK, you fancy yourself quite a movie buff. You've seen hundreds of releases, if not more. What would you say is the most memorable line of dialogue uttered on celluloid? If the decision of the compilers of the "Guinness Book of Films" counts for anything, it's "Bond - James Bond," by Sean Connery in the 1962 hit, "Dr. No." A close second, according to the publisher: Humphrey Bogart's "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine" - from, of course, the 1942 classic, "Casablanca."

There are lawbreakers who delight in taunting the police, and then there's the inmate who escaped from Norway's Bastoey Prison one night last week. The facility is on an island in Oslo Fjord, so to make it to freedom on the mainland he had to steal the prison's rowboat. Once in the clear, he phoned back to report that he'd been successful. And then he complained that the boat was too heavy. States With Most Firms On Fastest-Growing List

California has nurtured more of the nation's 500 fastest-growing private companies than any other state, according to an annual survey by Inc. magazine. To qualify, firms had to have been independent and privately held through 1997. They had to have generated revenue for at least half of 1993 and reached $200,000 in sales in 1997. States with the most companies on Inc.'s top-500 list and the number listed for each:

1. California 83
2. Texas 44
3. Massachusetts 31
4. Virginia 26
5. New York 24
6. Florida 22 (tie) Illinois 22
8. New Jersey 20
9. Pennsylvania 19
10. Georgia 17
11. Maryland 16
12. Ohio 14
13. Colorado 13 (tie) Michigan 13
15. Missouri 12