I wonder why anyone would hesitate to be generous with their writing. I mean, if you really want to make a living, go to Wall Street and trade oil futures ... We're writers. We're doing something that is inherently a generous act. We're exposing ourselves to the muse and to the things that frighten us. Why do that if you're not willing to be generous? And paradoxically, almost ironically, it turns out that the more generous you are, the more money you make. But that's secondary. For me, the privilege of being generous is why I get to do this.

When we intentionally seek out the difficult tasks, we're much more likely to actually create value.

Human nature is to need a map. If you’re brave enough to draw one, people will follow.

My problem with the search for the badge of real is that it trades your goals and your happiness for someone else's.

A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea. For millions of years, human beings have been part of one tribe or another. A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.

If you are wiling to do something that might not work, you are closer to being an artist.

Getting picked is fine if it happens to you. But it's not a plan. It's a version of waiting and hoping.