When you drink coffee, you become very focused, and in fact, the key to creative genius is to be defocused.

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.

Music was literally in the air at the time, the Vienna of 1780. Everybody played music, classical music. There were in fact so many musicians that in apartment buildings people had to come up with a schedule - you practice at 5 p.m., I'll practice at 6 p.m. That way the music didn't collide with one another.

The creative act always requires a stepping back. It's called the incubation period. The incubation period - one of the four phases of creativity - is when you're not consciously thinking of a problem, and you're letting it marinate. So this is why you hear time and again, people saying they had that "Eureka" moment in the bath, like Archimedes, or in the shower, or while going for a walk or in a coffeehouse.

We help other people because we can, or because it makes us feel good, not because we're counting on some future payback. There is a word for this; love.

I would love to think there is a direct relationship between coffee and genius, but they've done studies, and if anything, caffeine probably makes you a little less creative.

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