I think when a reader reads a whole book - which takes six to ten hours - that’s kind of a gift to the author. The gift of close, undivided attention. To who else do we listen so closely for eight straight hours? And when readers give that gift to me, I’m grateful for it.

Who you are is more important than what you do. The goal is to bring what you do in alignment with who you are, so you don’t end up being someone you don’t want to be.

Allow for many paths to your goal. Do not fixate on one path, because then you are likely to give up when that path is blocked.

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.

A surgeon might want to be the best surgeon in Manhattan, but out on Long Island on the weekend, not care at all how he is on the tennis courts or on the Ping-Pong table. Even turning your competitiveness off when it's appropriate, when other people are not being competitive, to recognize that social circumstance and, you know, cool it. That's a crucial competitive skill.

We all make mistakes, but we need to learn from them and move on. You can own a mistake, or the mistake will own you.

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.