If you want to give yourself a fair chance to succeed, never expect too much too soon

A piece of writing has to seduce the reader; it has to suspend disbelief and earn the reader's trust.

The tougher the times, the more clarity you gain about the difference between what really matters and what you only pretend to care about.

Make sure your characters are worth spending ten hours with. That’s how long it takes to read a book. Reading a book is like being trapped in a room for ten hours with those characters. Think of your main characters as dinner guests. Would your friends want to spend ten hours with the characters you’ve created? Your characters can be loveable, or they can be evil, but they’d better be compelling. If not, your reader will be bored and leave.

The important thing to know about playing to win and playing not to lose is that there are actually different neural networks that are being used. It's not very easy to do both at the same time and, if you are trying to have a playing to win mentality, you're going for it, there's some things that trip you up or trigger the wrong neural network. If you start worrying about your mistakes all of a sudden, if you get too focused on the facts and the details, these are going to shift your neural networks and sort of screw up your strategy.

The virtue of losing is we get used to the fact that competing and to lose doesn't kill you. It just makes you stronger. It just helps you get used to it.

Love that has been tested is far more awe-inspiring than love that has never known anything but bliss.