Courage is what you earn when you've been through the tough times and you discover they aren't so tough after all.

Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities.

The best example of how impossible it will be for Major League Baseball to crack down on steroids is the fact that baseball and the media are still talking about the problem as "steroids.

The lesson here is very simple. But it is striking how often it is overlooked. We are so caught in the myths of the best and the brightest and the self-made that we think outliers spring naturally from the earth. We look at the young Bill Gates and marvel that our world allowed that thirteen-year-old to become a fabulously successful entrepreneur. But that's the wrong lesson. Our world only allowed one thirteen-year-old unlimited access to a time sharing terminal in 1968. If a million teenagers had been given the same opportunity, how many more Microsofts would we have today?

I'm necessarily parasitic in a way. I have done well as a parasite. But I'm still a parasite.

What is learned out of hard work and trial is inevitably more powerful than what is learned easily.

My highest compliment is when someone comes up to me to say, "My 14-year-old daughter, or my 12-year-old son read your book and loved it." I cannot conceive of a greater compliment than that - to write something that as an adult I find satisfying, but also that manages to reach a curious 13- or 14-year-old.