That's why we feel so disoriented, irritated even, when these touchstones from our past are altered. We don't like it when our hometown changes, even in small ways. It's unsettling. The playground! It used to be right here, I swear. Mess with our hometown, and you're messing with our past, with who we are. Nobody likes that.

There's no one on the island telling them they're not good enough, so they just go ahead and sing and paint and write.

Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, none of them were born in Vienna. They all moved there. It became a magnet, but what made it magnetized in the first place? There has to be a seed there. In the case of Vienna of about 1780, it was this deep-seated love of music.

what doesn't kill you not only make you stronger, but also more honest.

When you're stuck on something creatively, you can't solve a problem, you go to a coffee shop.

Happiness is not a noun or a verb. It's a conjunction. Connective tissue.

Joseph Campbell, who when asked what spiritual practice he followed said, "I underline books." Me too.