I have devoted 30 years of research to how creative people live and work, to make more understandable the mysterious process by which they come up with new ideas and new things. [...] If I had to express in one word what makes their personalities different from others, it's complexity. They show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an "individual", each of them is a "multitude".

Purpose provides activation energy for living.

It is by being fully involved with every detail of our lives, whether good or bad, that we find happiness, not by trying to look for it directly.

But it is impossible to enjoy a tennis game, a book, or a conversation unless attention is fully concentrated on the activity.

Competition is an easy way to get into flow.

People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.

We have all experienced times when, instead of being buffeted by anonymous forces, we do feel in control of our actions, masters of our own fate. On the rare occasions that it happens, we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a landmark in memory for what life should be like.. moments like these are not the passive, receptive, relaxing timesthe best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.