there simply is no way to describe the past without lying. Our memories are not like fiction. They are fiction.

Just because an idea is true doesn't mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn't mean it's true.

You know more than you know.

The vocational approach at NOCCA (New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts) helps build grit in students. It teaches them how to be single-minded in pursuit of a goal, to sacrifice for the sake of a passion. The teachers demand hard work from their kids because they know, from personal experience, that creative success requires nothing less.

The great ages did not perhaps produce much more talent than ours,' [T.S.] Eliot wrote. 'But less talent was wasted.

While human nature largely determines how we hear the notes, it is nurture that lets us hear the music.

I always wanted to be a scientist, I always thought I'd be a scientist, that was the narrative I was carrying around. I worked in a neuroscience lab as an undergraduate and then after, almost five years in total, but I realized I just wasn't good at science. I didn't have the discipline for it.