If it is true that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, isn't it also true a society is only as healthy as its sickest citizen and only as wealthy as its most deprived?

It may in fact be utterly impossible to be successful without helping others to become successful.

I like good food. People want a certain taste, but when they're offered something else, they'll overeat. If they really are looking for chicken and someone gives them pork chops, they'll say, "I will have another." And that's because their satisfaction is not reached. So I thought I would make great food, but eat less of it. I tried it and I've taken off over 40 pounds.

Talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it.

I like to go back and read poems that I wrote fifty years ago, twenty years ago, and sometimes they surprise me - I didn't know I knew that then. Or maybe I didn't know it then, and I know more now.

Creativity or talent, like electricity, is something I don’t understand but something I’m able to harness and use. While electricity remains a mystery, I know I can plug into it and light up a cathedral or a synagogue or an operating room and use it to help save a life. Or I can use it to electrocute someone. Like electricity, creativity makes no judgment. I can use it productively or destructively. The important thing is to use it. You can’t use up creativity. The more you use it, the more you have.

The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.