There's nothing wrong with losing your temper for the right reasons.
Acquaintances represent a source of social power, and the more acquaintances you have the more powerful you are.
Success has to do with deliberate practice. Practice must be focused, determined, and in an environment where there's feedback.
It takes ten thousand hours to truly master anything. Time spent leads to experience; experience leads to proficiency; and the more proficient you are the more valuable you'll be.
Innovators have to be open. They have to be able to imagine things that others cannot and be willing to challenge their own preconceptions. They also need to be conscientious. An innovator who has brilliant ideas but lacks the discipline and persistence to carry them out is merely a dreamer. . . But crucially, innovators need to be disagreeable. . . They are people willing to take social risks-to do things that others might disapprove of.
That's your responsibility as a person, as a human being - to constantly be updating your positions on as many things as possible. And if you don't contradict yourself on a regular basis, then you're not thinking.
The visionary starts with a clean sheet of paper, and re-imagines the world.
I couldn't bear the road anymore. I'm sure that a lot of people who have been on the road a long time will say the same thing. After a while, waiting for bedroom service and planes - I wanted to go home.
In essay writing, I'm trying to push the form of expository writing. I'm trying to remember, trying to reckon, trying to find connections with the world, the nation and me, but I'm always trying to push the form, too, without being too obvious that I'm trying to push the form.
By the time I got to Harvard, I feel like I knew who I was, and my job there was to throw as much against the wall as possible, to see what would stick.
You make your work and you can't ask for approval when you're doing it. Otherwise, it's going to be untruthful in some way.