Someone like Mozart moves from Salzburg to Vienna, where all of the sudden he finds this musical city that is not only asking for music, it's demanding music of him.

I've always been a big believer in the power of place. I believe that where we are affects who we are when it comes to happiness, spirituality, economics and creative genius.

It is a fact of human nature that we derive pleasure from watching others engage in pleasurable acts. This explains the popularity of two enterprises: pornography and cafés.

So the greatest source of happiness is other people- and what does money do? It isolates us from other people. It enables us to build walls, literal and figurative, around ourselves. We move from a teeming college dorm to an apartment to a house, and if we're really wealthy, to an estate. We think we're moving up, but really we're walling off ourselves.

Genius is not only a what or a who, it is a where. It is grounded in a place every single time.

A confused mind is one that is open to the possibility of change.

For me, a place unvisited is like an unrequited love. A dull ache that- try as you might to think it away, to convince yourself that she really wasn't the right country for you- just won't leave you in peace.