I don’t think the shortage of artists has much to do with the innate ability to create or initiate. I think it has to do with believing that it’s possible and acceptable for you to do it. We’ve had these doors open wide for only a decade or so, and most people have been brainwashed into believing that their job is to copyedit the world, not to design it.

You cannot create a piece of art merely for money. Doing it as part of commerce so denudes art of wonder that it ceases to be art.

In contemporary art or movies, it makes perfect sense to be focused on the bleeding edge, on the new idea that's never been previously contemplated. But when we're discussing our goals, our passion and the way we interact with the culture, it seems to me that what works is significantly more important than what's new.

If you're passionate, be passionate enough to fail. Fail small, accept responsibility, repeat. The people who make change are the survivors of serial failure.

If there isn't a good reason, go home. If there is, then do something ... loud, now, and memorable.

We're better in the rearview mirror than we are at predicting - 'cause you're never going to be right every time. You can handicap it. You can point to certain elements that make it work, and many of those elements come straight out of epidemiology, right?

The first step toward becoming extraordinary is, of course, to stop being ordinary.