Basketball is an intricate, high-speed game filled with split-second, spontaneous decisions. But that spontaneity is possible only when everyone first engages in hours of highly repetitive and structured practice--perfecting their shooting, dribbling, and passing and running plays over and over again--and agrees to play a carefully defined role on the court. This is the critical lesson of improve, too, and it is also a key to understanding a puzzle of Millennium Challenge: spontaneity isn't random.

So the first task of a police force is not to fight crime and enforce the law. It is to establish legitimacy with the law-abiding citizenry and then fight crime and enforce the law.

...If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires. (151)

Activism that challenges the status quo, that attacks deeply rooted problems, is not for the faint of heart.

The key to good decision making is not knowledge... It's whether our work fulfills us.

My writing model is my mother, who is a writer as well. She always valued clarity and simplicity above all else. If someone doesn't understand what you're writing, then everything else you do is superfluous. Irrelevant. If any thoughtful, curious reader finds what I do impenetrable, I've failed.

If you play an audiotape of a yawn to blind people, they'll yawn too.