In the opening stage of most careers any attention is what you want, any attention is good attention, even if it's bad attention.

It's okay to be lost in college.

The idea of social performance, that we're always performing identities, is something I got fairly obsessed with. I think it's probably because I am a person who went to 15 different elementary and middle schools. I moved all the time, often having to run out in the middle of the night because my mom couldn't pay the bills. There were schools where I'd be the poor loser kid. There were schools where I'd suddenly be the smart kid or the cool kid, although that was very seldom.

If you have millions and millions of dollars, you're living in a totally different world. You don't feel it anymore and you've got to feel it.

Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter

Her seductive power, however, did not lie in her looks [...]. In reality, Cleopatra was physically unexceptional and had no political power, yet both Caesar and Antony, brave and clever men, saw none of this. What they saw was a woman who constantly transformed herself before their eyes, a one-woman spectacle.Her dress and makeup changed from day to day, but always gave her a heightened, goddesslike appearance. Her words could be banal enough, but were spoken so sweetly that listeners would find themselves remembering not what she said but how she said it.

Any momentary triumph you think you have gained through argument is really a Pyrrhic victory. The resentment and ill will you stir up is stronger and lasts longer than any momentary change of opinion. It is much more powerful to get others to agree with you through your actions, without saying a word. Demonstrate, do not explicate.