I think self-reliance and self-responsibility and self-accountability will help you as a parent, a teacher, as a citizen as a friend.

Creativity requires a lot of pass/fail/start again and it is often hard on the psyche.

To justify being listened to, I try to be as well informed as I can. Hence, the travel. Reading is good too. Reading gets you part way there, and I do read pretty voraciously for a guy who's trying to write so much.

Like a lot of inwardly drawn young people, I spent a lot of time in libraries. At my high school, I often spent my lunch breaks there.

I prefer to work out alone. It enables me to concentrate on the lessons that the Iron has for me.

The first several years of my life were used to upload incredible amounts of fear, and I just became afraid of everything. I was afraid of my parents, afraid of my classmates, afraid of the streets of Washington, D.C. I would flinch at every gesture.

I don't have talent. I have tenacity.