Sometimes I have to pause to make the distinction between Ben the teenager and Ben the businessman.

Expose yourself to as much randomness as possible.

Expose yourself to as much as possible. Attend conferences no one else is attending. Read books no one else is reading. Talk to people no one else is talking to.

Long-term goals are dangerous. They limit you. They hinder you from reacting to new conditions.

The internet tends to make smart people smarter and dumb people dumber.

I'm just the smallest dot in a big map of human history.

Rule of thumb: Be skeptical of things you learned before you could read. E.g., religion.

It got a little stressful in my first two years of high school, trying to make conference calls with investors in between classes, but I definitely learned a lot of important time-management lessons.

I have a broad range of interests, so I'll always be working on something.

If you really understand something, you can: 1) explain it using a clear metaphor and 2) explain the strongest counter-argument to the idea.

Sometimes Plan B can have the same desired outcome, but a different path for getting there.

My future starts when I wake up every morning. Every day I find something creative to do with my life.

We are usually on bended knee before laws or angrily reacting against them, both immature responses.

Yet he refused to be depressed. Instead, Morrie had become a lightning rod of ideas.

Mistakes and errors are the discipline through which we advance.

What I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house.

Why are a 'wise man' and a 'wiseguy' opposites?

I am not antigovernment. I would not run a campaign against government.

Oh lord, it's hard to be humble when your perfect in every way. I can't wait to look in the mirror, cause I get better looking each day.

I beg my reader to consider the "evidence" I provide for my case and perhaps feel persuaded as a result. Beyond that I make no claim.

The places where we went, it was not safe to be any bigger than a two-person crew. In Afghanistan, the only way for us to operate was to try to fly under the radar of everyone.