What makes someone an artist? I don't think is has anything to do with a paintbrush. There are painters who follow the numbers, or paint billboards, or work in a small village in China, painting reproductions. These folks, while swell people, aren't artists. On the other hand, Charlie Chaplin was an artist, beyond a doubt. So is Jonathan Ive, who designed the iPod. You can be an artist who works with oil paints or marble, sure. But there are artists who work with numbers, business models, and customer conversations. Art is about intent and communication, not substances.

Persistence isn't using the same tactics over and over. Persistence is having the same goal over and over.

It's entirely possible that there won't be a standing ovation at the end of your journey. That's okay. At least you lived.

You can be right or you can have empathy. You can't do both.

How often do our heroes stand still? It's hard to imagine Spock and Kirk landing on a planet and just relaxing for a month or two. Just hanging out has nothing to do with boldly going where no one has gone before. What makes us different from every other creature is that we go places, places we've not gone before. We do it willingly, and often. What makes our work and our life interesting is discovery, surprise, and the risk of exploration.

It takes three years to be an overnight success, sometimes more.

The resistance is not something to be avoided, it's something to seek out.