If you think success is about so many more things and is so much more arbitrary, then you can be much more open to the idea that you can be Ben Fountain and publish your great book at forty-nine.

We cling to the idea that success is a simple function of individual merit and that the world in which we all grow up and the rules we choose to write as a society don't matter at all.

We have the kind of self-made-man myth, which says that super-successful people did it themselves.

Do you see the consequences of the way we have chosen to think about success? Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung...We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail. And most of all, we become much too passive. We overlook just how large a role we all play—and by “we” I mean society—in determining who makes it and who doesn’t.

Success is deeply rooted in time and place. You may have the drive to read tons of books on biology. But if there are no books on biology in your library, and the library is never open, your drive is meaningless.

being able to act intelligently and instinctively in the moment is possible only after a long and rigorous of education and experience

Our first impressions are generated by our experiences and our environment, which means that we can change our first impressions... by changing the experiences that comprise those impressions.