Stories are flight simulators for our brains.

The most basic way to get someone's attention is this: Break a pattern.

The first problem of communication is getting people's attention.

Anger prepares us to fight and fear prepares us to flee.

Mental simulation is not as good as actually doing something. But it's the next best thing. And the right kind of a story is a simulation.

To make our communications more effective, we need to shift our thinking from "What information do I need to convey?" to "What questions do I want my audience to ask?

Change is hard because people wear themselves out. And that’s the second surprise about change: What looks like laziness is often exhaustion.

Success emerges from the quality of the decisions we make and the quantity of luck we receive. We can't control luck. But we can control the way we make choices.

What’s working, and how can we do more of it?

The more we reduce the amount of information in an idea, the stickier it will be.

The more hooks an idea has, the better it will cling to memory.

Make enthusiasm a way of life. Make optimism a way of success. Make gratitude a way of happiness.

To become a better you, be diligent and never let the charms of procrastination and excuses seduce you to fall for mediocrity.

Fortune makes him fool whom she makes her darling.

My first language is Gaelic.

I think physicists are the Peter Pans of the human race. They never grow up and they keep their curiosity.

You are only as young as your spine is flexible.

Going to Morocco was massive; that's where I really found music which had the African syncopation and swing mixed with Arabic strains, and together they had this transporting, bittersweet quality.

Wealth accumulates, and men decay.

I have a ranch, which is my favorite place in the world.

Life isn't finding shelter in the storm. It's about learning to dance in the rain.