War is the greatest fun man can have with his pants on.
We [people] can't do much about the fate part, but we can certainly do a lot about the man part.
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.
But to us, probability is the very guide of life.
I have to be able to love somebody except myself and the theater.
I learned from James Baldwin that one can be a novelist, essayist, and activist, combined. That being critical of one's country is a way of loving it. That travel is crucial for perspective. That faith needn't be confined to organized religion.
In Russia an authoritarian leader is running the country. You can't fight Putin with elections because he controls them. That's why demonstrations are the most effective approach. Unfortunately Russia has sunk to this primitive level.