Policy is driven by more than politics, however. It is equally driven by ideas.

When you're an underdog, you're forced to try things you would never otherwise have attempted.

Success is not a function of individual talent. It's the steady accumulation of advantages. It's bound up in so many other broader circumstantial, environmental, historical, and cultural factors.

The sense of possibility so necessary for success comes not just from inside us or from our parents. It comes from our time: from the particular opportunities that our place in history presents us with.

If you don't contradict yourself on a regular basis, then you're not thinking.

An innate gift and a certain amount of intelligence are important, but what really pays is ordinary experience.

Where they come from matters. They're products of particular places and environments.