Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning.

Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. Once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig.

Radio stations have constructed a narrow door[way], and that's because they don't understand how complex and paradoxical our snap judgments are. It's hard to measure new songs.

And my advice for college graduates is don't reflexively give money to your alma mater, something particular to Americans that I find extraordinary. Take Princeton, for example - it has more money on a per capita basis than any educational institution in the history of educational institutions. There is no scenario where it can spend all the money its endowment generates every year. If there is anyone who gives a single dollar to Princeton, they have completely lost their mind. I will say that without reservation.

The world is not a meritocracy, as much as we may like to pretend that it is. And we have a long way to go before we really reward people based on their own merit.

We cling to the idea that success is a simple function of individual merit and that the world in which we all grow up and the rules we choose to write as a society don't matter at all.

It's not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It's whether or not our work fulfills us. Being a teacher is meaningful.