To succeed in life requires a total inability to do anything that makes you uncomfortable when you look at yourself in the mirror.

I'm a private intellectual, not a public one.

Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel or a private jet.

Aesthetics, ethics, and many good things in humans are contagious.

Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the words 'impossible', 'never', 'too difficult' too often, drop him or her from your social network.

Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market alow you to put there.

An erudite is someone who displays less than he knows; a journalist or consultant the opposite.