The person who failed often knows how to avoid future failures. The person who knows only success can be more oblivious to all the pitfalls.

Whatever news we get about the scans, I’m not going to die when we hear it. I won’t die the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that. So today, right now, well this is a wonderful day. And I want you to know how much I’m enjoying it.” I thought about that, and about Jai’s smile. I knew then. That’s the way the rest of my life would need to be lived.

We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. If I don’t seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you.

Throughout my academic career, I'd given some pretty good talks. But being considered the best speaker in the computer science department is like being known as the tallest of the Seven Dwarfs.

I'm a professor - there should be some lessons learned - and how you can use the stuff you hear today to enable your dreams or enable the dreams of others. And as you get older you may find that enabling-the-dreams-of-others thing is even more fun.

Proper apologies have three parts: 1) What I did was wrong. 2) I feel badly that I hurt you. 3) How do I make this better?

Anybody can get chewed out. It's the rare person who says, oh my god, you were right. As opposed to, no wait, the reason is... We've all heard that