There will be statues of Bill Gates across the Third World. There's a reasonable shot that - because of his money - we will cure malaria.

Clear writing is universal. People talk about writing down to an audience or writing up to an audience; I think that's nonsense. If you write in a way that is clear, transparent, and elegant, it will reach everyone.

It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success. It’s the rich who get the biggest tax breaks. It’s the best students who get the best teaching and most attention. And it’s the biggest nine- and ten-year-olds who get the most coaching and practice. Success is the result of what sociologists like to call “accumulative advantage.

I want to convince you that these kinds of personal explanations of success don't work. People don't rise from nothing....It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't.

Starting epidemics requires concentrating resources on a few key area. The Law of the Few says that Connectors, Mavens, and Salesman are responsible for starting word-of-mouth epidemics, which means that if you are interested in starting a word-of-mouth epidemic , your resources ought to be solely concentrated on these three groups. No one else matters.

Happiness, in one sense, is a function of how closely our world conforms to the infinite variety of human preference.

Science fiction annoyed me because it was like, "Why is the world as it is not enough for you?"