As I get older, I've learned to listen to people rather than accuse them of things.

Testosterone is the hormone of collaboration and competition that, whenever we compete on a team, we collaborate with our teammates. And most of us in our daily life, to the extent that we have to compete with the rat race in the world out there, we're collaborating with other people at the same time. The two are hand in hand.

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.

But I'd rather help than watch. I'd rather have a heart than a mind. I'd rather expose too much than too little. I'd rather say hello to strangers than be afraid of them. I would rather know all this about myself than have more money than I need. I'd rather have something to love than a way to impress you.

Books have been my classroom and my confidant. Books have widened my horizons. Books have comforted me in my hardest times. Books have changed my life.

Success is not measured by bestseller lists. Certain types of great books sell very well; other types of great books don’t sell a lot. But they’re both great.

I can push myself and you can push yourself, but competing, we push ourselves a little farther and we bring out our best even if one of us wins and one of us loses. The virtue of competition is that we both get better, not that one does. And that means we have great respect for the opponents, whether we win or whether we lose.