People’s stories are the most personal thing they have, and paying attention to those stories is just about the most important thing you can do for them.

We proceed by doubt, by trial and error, by resisting the impulse to lunge after certainty.

Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. Not learning other people's ideas, or memorizing a body of information, however much those may sometimes be useful. Developing your own ideas. In short, thinking for yourself.

People’s stories are the most personal thing they have, and paying attention to those stories is just about the most important thing you can do for them.

Hence the vogue for double majors. It isn’t enough anymore to take a bunch of electives in addition to your primary focus, to roam freely across the academic fields, making serendipitous connections and discoveries, the way that American higher education was designed (uniquely, among the world’s systems) to allow you to do.

Life, if you live it right, keeps surprising you, and the thing that keeps surprising you the most…is yourself

If you're oblivious to other people, chances are pretty good that you're going to hurt them.