being able to act intelligently and instinctively in the moment is possible only after a long and rigorous of education and experience

The visionary starts with a clean sheet of paper, and re-imagines the world.

We don't know where our first impressions come from or precisely what they mean, so we don't always appreciate their fragility.

The great accomplishment of Jobs's life is how effectively he put his idiosyncrasies - his petulance, his narcissism, and his rudeness - in the service of perfection.

If everyone has to think outside the box, maybe it is the box that needs fixing.

The successful are those who have been given opportunities.

An aggressive drug-testing program would cut down on certain abuses, but its never going to catch everyone - or even close to everyone.

There will be statues of Bill Gates across the Third World. There's a reasonable shot that - because of his money - we will cure malaria.

Outlier are those who have been given opportunities-- -and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them.

When you're an underdog, you're forced to try things you would never otherwise have attempted.

If we are to learn to improve the quality of the decisions we make, we need to accept the mysterious nature of our snap judgments.

The liberation from ignorance and tyranny was a long war, because the oppressors always had the advantage. They smooth-talked the masses with lies and promises.

At the age of 46, forgetfulness & confusion had become a daily aspect of life.

I wouldn't describe that "position" as "parasitic." I'd describe that experience as "edifying." I don't merely write from a critical intellectual distance. I actually live around here.

I can double my density from three-sixty degrees to seven-twenty instantly.

We must learn how to think like the planet.

The lazy man claims he is too heavy for light work and too light for heavy work.

The hungrier one becomes, the clearer one's mind works— also the more sensitive one becomes to the odors of food.

Clothes if they are not well cut, you can kill nobody. A building poorly built can kill people. It's a much more difficult work. I would not compare myself with that.

If I've made it a little easier for artists to work in violence, great! I've accomplished something.

A man spends the first year of his life learning that he ends at his own skin, and the rest of his life learning that he doesn't.