I know it sounds hard to believe, but habits laid down by our ancestors persist even after the conditions that created those habits have gone away.

I've been in auditions without screens, and I can assure you that I was prejudiced. I began to listen with my eyes, and there is no way that your eyes don't affect your judgement. The only true way to listen is with your ears and your heart. (p.251)

The single most important thing a city can do is provide a community where interesting, smart people want to live with their families.

Incompetence is certainty in the absence of expertise. Overconfidence is certainty in the presence of expertise.

What do we tell our children? Haste makes waste. Look before you leap. Stop and think. Don't judge a book by its cover. We believe that we are always better off gathering as much information as possible and spending as much time as possible in deliberation.

We tend to credit those who create an idea, not those who perfect it, forgetting that it is often only in the perfection of an idea that true progress occurs. Putting sixty-four transistors on a chip allowed people to dream of the future. Putting four million transistors on a chip actually gave them the future.

Instead of thinking about talent as something that you acquire, talent should be thought of as something that you develop.