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

To become a chess grandmaster also seems to take about ten years. (Only the legendary Bobby Fisher got to that elite level in less than that amount of time: it took him nine years.) And what's ten years? Well, it's roughly how long it takes to put in ten thousand hours of hard practice. Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.

Visionaries are limited by their visions.

If your parents are billionaires, that might actually be an obstacle to your own happiness and self-development. If you go to Oxford or Harvard, that might actually thwart your desire to graduate with a science or math degree.

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

I think that persistence and stubbornness and hard work are probably, at the end of the day, more important than the willingness to take a risk.

I became convinced that knowing lots of people was kind of skill, something that the diligent can overcome.