By the age of 3, children from wealthier households hear, on average, about 500,000 encouragements and 80,000 discouragements. The ratio is reversed in households on welfare.

I want to give people theories, I want to expose them to scientific stories that force them to re-evaluate the way they use these three pounds of meat inside their head.

What you discover when you look at creativity from the perspective of the brain is that it is universal. We're all creative all of the time, we can't help but be creative.

Distance and difference are the secret tonic of creativity. When we get home, home is still the same. But something in our mind has been changed, and that changes everything.

Grit is the stubborn refusal to quit.

...new ideas are merely several old thoughts that occur at the exact same time.

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