When you want to get good at something, how you spend your time practicing is far more important than the amount of time you spend.

Kissing could have begun as a way of sniffing out who's who. From a whiff to a kiss was just a short trip across the face.

During the Middle Ages they understood that words accompanied by imagery are much more memorable. By making the margins of a book colorful and beautiful, illuminations help make the text unforgettable. It's unfortunate that we've lost the art of illumination.

Evolution has programmed our brains to find two things particularly interesting, and therefore memorable: jokes and sex - and especially, it seems, jokes about sex.

Woodworking requires a completely different kind of thinking and problem-solving ability than writing. With writing, you take a set of facts and ideas, and you reason your way forward to a story that pulls them together. With woodworking, you start with an end product in mind, and reason your way backward to the raw wood.

Experts step outside their comfort zone and study themselves failing.

The way to get better at a skill is to force yourself to practice just beyond your limits.