People don't rise from nothing.

You can learn as much - or more - from one glance at a private space as you can from hours of exposure to a public face.

It's very hard to find someone who's successful and dislikes what they do.

if we can control the environment in which rapid cognition takes place, then we can control rapid cognition

Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else's head.

I interviewed one of the most powerful lawyers in the world and he told me, "At the time, it was the worst thing in the world not to be able to get a job at a fancy law firm, but it's the greatest thing that ever happened in my life." It was a humble acknowledgment of how forces much larger than himself shaped his career. I really wanted to bring that point home.

You don't start at the top if you want to find the story. You start in the middle, because it's the people in the middle who do the actual work in the world.