The conventional explanation for Jewish success, of course, is that Jews come from a literate, intellectual culture. They are famously "the people of the book." There is surely something to that. But it wasn't just the children of rabbis who went to law school. It was the children of garment workers. And their critical advantage in climbing the professional ladder wasn't the intellectual rigor you get from studying the Talmud. It was the practical intelligence and savvy you get from watching your father sell aprons on Hester Street.

All artists have to do that at a certain point. This shift that has to happen between the initial moment of creation and then the consideration of what has been created.

[Norden] said, with the Mark 15 Norden bombsight, he could drop a bomb into a pickle barrel at 20,000 feet.

Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good.

A study at the University of Utah found that if you ask someone why he is friendly with someone else, he’ll say it is because he and his friend share similar attitudes. But if you actually quiz the two of them on their attitudes, you’ll find out that what they actually share is similar activities. We’re friends with the people we do things with, as much as we are with the people we resemble. We don’t seek out friends, in other words. We associate with the people who occupy the same small, physical spaces that we do.

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

Arousal leaves us mind-blind.