Tag: book quotes

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“Bird by Bird” Quotes

Bird by Bird coverI recently read “Bird by Bird: Some INstructions on Writing and Life” by Anne Lamott. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like the quotes, please buy the book here.

“Writing can be a pretty desperate endeavor, because it is about some of our deepest needs: our need to be visible, to be heard, our need to make sense of our lives, to wake up and grow and belong.” (19)

“One writer I know tells me that he sits down every morning and says to himself nicely, “It’s not like you don’t have a choice, because you do – you can either type or kill yourself”” (22)

“We need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here – and, by extension, what we’re supposed to be writing.” (32)

“As soon as you start protecting your characters from the ramifications of their less-than-lofty behavior, your story will start to feel flat and pointless, just like in real life.” (45)

“One line of dialogue that rings true reveals character in a way that pages of description can’t.” (47)

“Ethan Canin said, “Nothing is as important as a likeable narrator. Nothing holds a story together better.”

“A person’s faults are largely what make him or her likable.” (50)

“THere’s no point in writing hopeless novels. We all know we’re going to die; what’s important is the kind of men and women we are in the face of this.” (51)

“John Gardner wrote that the writer is creating a dream into which he or she invites the reader, and that the dream must be vivid and continuous.” (57)

“Drama is the way of holding the reader’s attention. The basic formula for drama is setup, buildup, payoff – just like a joke.” (59)

“Fix instead on who your people are and how they feel toward one another, what they say, how they smell, whom they fear.” (61)

“Sometimes Alice Adams uses a formula when writing a short story, which goes ABDCE, for Action, Background, Development, Climax, and Ending.” (62)

“Dialogue is the way to nail character, so you have to work on getting the voice right.” (67)

“My friend Carpenter talks about the unconscious as the cellar where the little boy sits who creates the characters, and he hands them up to you through the cellar door. He might as well be cutting out paper dolls. He’s peaceful; he’s just playing.” (72)

“Writing involves seeing people suffer and, as Robert Stone once put it, finding some meaning therein.” (97)

“In those moments, you see that you and the chipmunk are alike, are a part of a whole. I think we would see this more often if we didn’t have our conscious minds. THe conscious mind seems to block that feeling of oneness os we can function efficiently, maneuver in the world a little bit better, get our taxes done on time.” (98)

“”The Gulf Stream will flow through a straw provided the straw is aligned to the Gulf Stream, and not at cross purposes with it.” … So now I always tell my students about the Gulf Stream: that what it means for us, for writers, is taht we need to align ourselves with the river of the story, the river of the unconscious, of memory and sensibility, of our characters’ lives, which can then pour through us, the straw.” (121)

“If you want to know how God feels about money, look at whom she gives it to.” (128)

“Historically, when people do too well too quickly, they are a Greek tragedy waiting to happen. I, who did not do too well too quickly and who was in fact not doing too well over time, was actually in the catbird seat.” (128)

“When a child comes out of your body, it arrives with about a fifth of your brain clutched in its little hand.” (137)

“I told him that the best possible thing was to shoot high and make mistakes, and that when he was old, or dying, he was almost certainly not going ot say, “God! I’m so glad I took so few risks! I’m so glad I kept shooting so low!”” (156)

“To be great, art has to point somewhere.” (205)

“The coach says, “If you’re not enough before the gold medal, you won’t be enough with it.”” (218)

“If something inside you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write striaght into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Don’t worry about appearing sentimental. Worry about being unavailable; worry about being absent or fraudulent. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer, you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act – truth is always subversive.” (226)

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“Give and Take” Quotes

Give and Take coverI recently read “Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach To Success” by Adam Grant. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like the quotes, buy the book here.

“If you insist on quid pro quo every time you help others, you will have a much narrower network.” (45)

“Rifkin is governed by a simple rule: the five-minute favor. “You should be willing to do something that will take you five minutes or less for anybody.” (55)

“Overall, the surgeons didn’t get better with practice. They only got better at the specific hospital where they practiced.” (70)

“A defining feature of how givers collaborate: they take on the tasks that are in the group’s best interest, not necessarily their own personal interests.” (74)

“Eugene Kim and Theresa Glomb found that highly talented people tend to make others jealous, placing themselves at risk of being disliked, resented, ostracized, and undermined. But if these talents people are also givers, they no longer have a target on their backs. Instead, givers are appreciated for their contributions to the group.” (75)

“Carolyn Omine adds, ‘Compared to other writers’ room I’ve been in, I would say The Simpsons tends to look longer for jokes. I think it’s because we have writers, like George, who will say, ‘No, that’s not quite right,’ even if it’s late, even if we’re all tired. I think that’s an important quality. We need those people, like George, who aren’t afraid to say, “no, this isn’t good enough. We can do better.’” (76)

“‘One of the best things about developing that credibility was if I wanted to try something that was fairly strange, people would be willing to at least give it a shot at the table read,’ Meyer reflects. ‘They ended up not rewriting my stuff as much as they had early on, because they know I had a decent track record. I think people saw that my heart was in the right place – my intentions were good. That goes a long way.’” (76)

“This is a perspective gap: when we’re not experiencing a psychologically or physically intense state, we dramatically underestimate how much it will affect us.” (87)

“The same patterns emerged with friends giving and receiving wedding gifts and birthday gifts. The senders preferred to give unique gifts, but the recipients actually preferred the gifts they solicited on their registries and wish lists.” (89)

“‘There are only a few hundred people at any one time writing television comedy for a living,’ Meyer says. ‘It’s a good idea not to alienate these guys, and most of the jobs you get are more or less through word of mouth, or a recommendation. It’s really important to have a good reputation. I quickly learned to see other comedy writers as allies.’” (91)

“Success doesn’t measure a human being, effort does.” (102)

“Of course, natural talent also matters, but once you have a pool of candidates above the threshold of necessary potential, grit is a major factor that predicts how close they get to achieving their potential.” (106)

“When Dave stammered and tripped over a couple of arguments, something strange happened. The jurors liked him.” (129)

“Research suggests that there are two fundamental paths to influence: dominance and prestige.” (130)

“But there’s a twist: expressing vulnerability is only effective if the audience receives other signals establishing the speaker’s competence.” (133)

“Psychologists call this the pratfall effect. Spilling a cup of coffee hurt the image of the average candidate: it was just another reason for the audience to dislike him. But the same blunder helped the expert appear human and approachable – instead of superior and distant.” (134)

“By asking people questions about their plans and intentions, we increase the likelihood that they actually act on these plans and intentions.” (142)

“New research shows that advice seeking is a surprisingly effective strategy for exercising influence when we lack authority.” (150)

“Seeking advice is among the most effective ways to influence peers, superiors, and subordinates.” (150)

“Research shows that people who regularly seek advice and help from knowledgeable colleagues are actually rated more favorably by supervisors than those who never seek advice and help.” (151)

“When we ask for advice, in order to give us a recommendation, advisers have to look at the problem or dilemma from our point of view.” (151)

“Benjamin Franklin ‘had a fundamental rule for winning friends,’ Isaacson writers: appeal to ‘their pride and vanity by constantly seeking their opinion and advice, and they will admire you for your judgment and wisdom.’” (153)

“The change of context brought renewed energy.” (169)

“Research shows that if people start volunteering two hours a week, their happiness, satisfaction, and self-esteem go up a year later.” (174)

“Giving has an energizing effect only if it’s an enjoyable, meaningful choice rather than undertake out of duty and obligation.” (175)

“Three decades of research show that receiving support from colleagues is a robust antidote to burnout.” (177)

“If you spend the money on yourself, your happiness doesn’t change. But if you spend the money on others, you actually report becoming significantly happier.” (183)

“It’s wise to start out as a giver, since research shows that trust is hard to build but easy to destroy. But once a counterpart is clearly acting like a taker, it makes sense for givers to flex their reciprocity styles and shift to a matching strategy.” (198)

“Givers, particularly agreeable ones, often overestimate the degree to which assertiveness might be off-putting to others.” (208)

“When we look at a rivas as a fellow soccer fan, rather than as an enemy, we can identify with him. Oftentimes, we fail to identify with people because we’re thinking about ourselves – or them – in terms that are too specific and narrow. If we look more broadly at commonalities between us, it becomes much easier to see giving as otherish.” (226)

“Psychologists have found that on average, people whose names start with A and B get better grades and are accepted to higher-ranked law schools than people whose names start with C and D – and that professional baseball players whose names start with K, the symbol for strikeouts, strikeout 9 percent more often than their peers.” (231)

“It was not just any commonality that drove people to act like givers. IT was an uncommon commonality.” (232)

“A popular way to achieve optimal distinctiveness is to join a unique group. Being part of a group with shared interests, identities, goals, values, skills, characteristics, or experiences gives us a sense of connection and belonging. At the same time, being part of a group that is clearly distinct from other groups gives us a sense of uniqueness. Studies show that people identify more strongly with individuals and groups that share unique similarities. The more rare a group, value, interest, skill, or experience is, the more likely it is to facilitate a bond. And research indicates that people are happier in groups that provide optimal distinctiveness, giving a sense of both inclusion and uniqueness. These are the groups in which we take the most pride, and feel the most cohesive and valued.” (233)

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“Originals” Quotes

Originals CoverI recently read “Originals: How Nonconformists Move The World” by Adam Grant. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like them, buy the book here.

“After finding that disadvantaged groups consistently support the status quo more than advantaged groups, Jost and his colleagues concluded: “People who suffer the most from a given state of affairs are paradoxically the least likely to question, challenge, reject, or change it.”” (6)

“Justifying the default system serves a soothing function. It’s an emotional painkiller: If the world is supposed to be this way, we don’t need to be dissatisfied with it.” (7)

“The hallmark of originality is rejecting the default and exploring whether a better option exists.” (7)

“Although child prodigies are often rich in both talent and ambition, what holds them back from moving the world forward is that they don’t learn to be original. As they perform in Carnegie Hall, win the science Olympics, and become chess champions, something tragic happens: Practice makes perfect, but it doesn’t make new.” (9)

“Entrepreneurs who kept their day jobs had 33 percent lower odds of failure than those who quit. If you’re risk averse and have some doubts about the feasibility of your ideas, it’s likely that your business will be built to last. If you’re a freewheeling gambler, your startup is far more fragile.” (17)

“Polaroid founder Edwin Land remarked, “No person could possibly be original in one area unless he were possessed of the emotional and social stability that comes from fixed attitudes in all areas other than the one in which he is being original.”” (19)

“Having a sense of security in one realm gives us the freedom to be original in another.” (19)

“The biggest barrier to originality is not idea generation – it’s idea selection.” (31)

“Simonton finds that on average, creative geniuses weren’t qualitatively better in their fields than their peers. They simply produced a greater volume of work, which game them more variation and a higher chance of originality.” (35)

“If you want to be original, “the most important possible thing you could do,” says Ira Glass, the producer of This American Life and the podcast Serial, “is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work.” (37)

“Across fields, Simonton reports that the most prolific people nto only have the highest originality; they also generate their most original output during the periods in which they produce the largest volume.” (37)

“Many people fail to achieve originality because they generate a few ideas and then obsess about refining them to perfection.” (37)

“When artists assessed one another’s performances, they were about twice as accurate as managers and test audiences in predicting how often the videos would be shared.” (42)

“Our intuitions are only accurate in domains where we have a lot of experience.” (51)

“Physicists, accountants, insurance analysts, and chess masters – they all work in fields where cause-and-effect relationships are fairly consistent. But admissions officers, court judges, intelligence analysts, psychiatrists, and stock brokers didn’t benefit much from experience. In a rapidly changing world, the lessons of experience can easily point us in the wrong direction. And because the pace of change is accelerating, our environments are becoming ever more unpredictable.” (53)

“The more successful people have been in the past, the worse they perform when they enter a new environment. They become overconfident, and they’re less likely to seek critical feedback even though the context is radically different.” (54)

“When people sought to exert influence but lacked respect, others perceived them as difficult, coercive, and self-serving. Since they haven’t earned our admiration, we don’t feel they have the right to tell us what to do, and we push back.” (65)

“Francis Ford Coppola observed, “the way to come to power is not always to merely challenge the Establishment, but first make a place in it and then challenge and double-cross the Establishment.”” (66)

“Most of us assume that to be persuasive, we ought to emphasize our strengths and minimize our weaknesses. That kind of powerful communication makes sense if the audience is supportive. But when you’re pitching a novel idea or speaking up with a suggestion for change, your audience is likely to be skeptical. Investors are looking to poke holes in your arguments; managers are hunting for reasons why your suggestion won’t work. Under those circumstances, for at least for reasons, it’s actually more effective to adopt Griscom’s form of powerless communication by accentuating the flaws in your idea.” (69)

“The first advantage is that leading with weaknesses disarms the audience.” (69)

“If you’re perched at the top, you’re expected to be different and therefore have the license to deviate. Likewise, if you’re still at the bottom of a status hierarchy, you have little to lose and everything to gain by being original. But the middle segment of that hierarchy – where the majority of people in an organization are found – is dominated by insecurity.” (82)

“In the long run, research shows that the mistakes we regret are not errors of commission, but errors of omission. If we could do things over, most of us would censor ourselves less and express our ideas more.” (91)

“If you’re feeling pressured to start working on a creative task when you’re wide awake, it might be worth delaying it until you’re a little sleepier.” (97)

“People have a better memory for incomplete than complete tasks. Once a task is finished, we stop thinking about it. But when it is interrupted and left undone, it stays active in our minds.” (99)

“In the majority of circumstances, your odds of success aren’t higher if you go first. And when the market is uncertain, unknown, or underdeveloped, being a pioneer has pronounced disadvantages.” (108)

“The originals who start a movement will often be its most radical members, whose ideas and ideals will prove too hot for those who follow their lead.” (117)

“Simon Sinek argues that if we want to inspire people, we should start with why. If we communicate the vision behind our ideas, the purpose guiding our products, people will flock to us. This is excellent advice – unless you’re doing something original that challenges the status quo.” (124)

“For insiders, the key representative is the person who is most central and connected in the group… But for outsiders, the person who represents the group is the one with the most extreme views.” (128)

“The most promising ideas begin from novelty and then add familiarity.” (136)

“Instead of assuming that others share our principles, or trying to convince them to adopt ours, we ought to present our values as a means of pursuing theirs. It’s hard to change other people’s ideals. It’s much easier to link our agendas to familiar values that people already hold.” (140)

“Rob Minkoff explains: If it’s not original enough, it’s boring or trite. If it’s too original, it may be hard for the audience to understand. The goal is to push the envelope, not tear the envelope.” (141)

“Predicting personality is more challenging with only children than with children who have siblings. Like firstborns, only children grow up in a world of adults and identify with parents. Like lastborns, they are protected fiercely, which leaves them “free to become radicals themselves.”” (162)

“Reasoning communicates a message of respect… it implies that had children but known better or understood more, they would not have acted in an inappropriate way. It is a mark of esteem for the listener; an indication of faith in his or her ability to comprehend, develop, and improve.” (164)

“Parents of highly creative children had an average of less than one rule and tended to “place emphasis on moral values, rather than on specific rules.”” (164)

“When we praise children for their intelligence, they develop a fixed view of ability, which leads them to give up in the face of failure. Instead of telling them how smart they are, it’s wise to praise their effort, which encourages them to see their abilities as malleable and persist to overcome obstacles.” (169)

“The most inspiring way to convey a vision is to outsource it to the people who are actually affected by it.” (221)

“People are inspired to achieve the highest performance when leaders describe a vision and then invite a customer to bring it to life with a personal story. The leader’s message provides an overarching vision to start the car, and the user’s story offers an emotional appeal that steps on the accelerator.” (222)

“Merely knowing that you’re not the only resistor makes it substantially easier to reject the crowd. Emotional strength can be found even in small numbers.” (225)

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“Nobrow” Quotes

Nobrow coverI recently read “Nobrow: The culture of marketing – the marketing of culture” by John Seabrook. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like the quotes, buy the book here.

“For more than a century, this was how status had worked in America. You made some money in one commercial enterprise or another, and then to solidify your social position and to distinguish yourself from others, you cultivated a distaste for the cheap amusements and common spectacles that made up the mass culture.” (17)

“The old cultural arbiters, whose job was to decide what was “good” in the sense of “valuable,” were being replaced by a new type of arbiter, whose skill was to define “good” in terms of “popular.”” (26)

“In the United States, making hierarchical distinctions about culture was the only acceptable way for people to talk openly about class.” (27)

“One of Tina’s gifts as an editor was that she saw the American cultural hierarchy for what it really was: not a hierarchy of taste at all, but a hierarchy of power that used taste to cloak its real agenda.” (32)

“He knew how little difference between the Hileses and the Seabrooks there really was – which was precisely why these cultural distinctions were so important. This was true all over America. No one wanted to talk about social class – it’s in poor taste, even among the rich – so people used High-Low distinctions instead. As long as this system existed, it permitted considerable equality between the classes. Strip away that old cultural hierarchy, and social relations between different socioeconomic levels were harsher, because they were only about money.” (46-47)

”From Wordsworth to Rage Against the Machine, art created for idealistic reasons, in apparent disregard for the marketplace, was judged superior to art made to sell. For the artist, it was not enough to have a gift for giving the people what they wanted; to insure fame, the artist had to pretend not to care what the people wanted. This was difficult to do, for the artist, of every type, is as desperate for public approval as any human being.” (68)

“Oscar Wilde wrote, “A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want. The moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or dishonest tradesman.” (69)

“MTV helped make rebelliousness and anti authoritarianism a mainstream commodity.” (89)

“The kind of pop-cultural fanship that seemed so unnatural to Nathanael West and Ray Bradbury is just everyday life in the 90s. Without pop culture to build your identity around, what have you got?” (96)

“The artists themselves, who had once taken orders from the producers, now took orders from the marketers.” (106)

“Ironically, while the artists had won the means of production, in the resulting cultural deluge they’d lost the means of getting the audience to notice them.” (106)

“George C. Wolfe told me, “The whole concept of the journeyman artist has disappeared. You are not allowed to go on a journey. There is no journey. You’re either extraordinarily brilliant or you’re dead.”” (109)

“The irony of Star Wars was that as a result of its success, a movie as fresh and unknowing as Star Wars couldn’t get made twenty years later.” (150)

“The marketing is the culture and the culture the marketing.” (153)

“In Nobrow, judgements about which brand of jeans to wear are more like judgments of identity than quality.” (170)

“The purpose (at The Pottery Barn) is to create a dominant, mainstream identity that’s too bland to be really unique, but is enough to make these mass-produced objects feel special.” (173)

“Jimmy Lovine told me, “We all know that David Geffen’s really smart and really talented, but he’s also not afraid, or if he is he doesn’t show it. He’s more than willing to put all the chips on something he really believes in. ANd that doesn’t exist in the record business anymore. Because most people are afraid for their jobs, of the impact someone else can have on them.” (189)

“Because Geffen was not afraid, he was greatly feared.” (190)

“”Money does corrupt,” Jackson Browne told me. “God, as soon as you have a lot of money, you’ve got to figure out how to stay in touch with what you write and why you write. And if you always had the idea that money was going ot make a difference in your life, now you have to contend with the idea that it doesn’t.”” (191)

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“No Fears, No Excuses” Quotes

No Fears, No Excuses coverI recently read “No Fears, No Excuses: What You Need To Do To Have A Great Career” by Larry Smith. Below are the quotes I found most interesting. If you like the quotes, click here to buy the book.

(Disclosure: The publisher sent me a free, advance copy of this book. I don’t think it influenced what I found interesting, but who knows.)

“The strategy most often employed is this: Get an education. More competition? Get more education. More competition? Get some relevant experience. More competition? Get even more experience. But everyone else is adding experience at the same rate. Believing you can advance your career solely by celebrating another birthday does not seem a very sophisticated strategy for the twenty-first century.
I asked John what the flaw of this approach was. He understood that the primary problem was that almost everyone else was doing it. The only way it could work is if you outlasted everyone: Career by endurance.
“Think about the consequences,” I said. “As the situation becomes ever more competitive, you make yourself like everyone else? In what world would that make sense? You’ve essentially made yourself into a commodity, and one that’s interchangeable. And the commodity worker is bid down to the lowest price possible.” (13)

“In a competitive market, there will always be salespeople.” (18)

“This route (becoming a physician, lawyer, engineer, accountant) seems ideal to the immigrant parents who took substantial and personal risks to improve the lives of their children, who now are supposed to take no risks at all. Leaving aside the inconsistency of the approach (risk-taking parents who are surprised they raised risk-taking children), all the traditional professions are under siege by technology and global competition.” (27)

“Any particular skill set is subject to becoming obsolete with little notice.” (28)

“The only question that counts is, Have you achieved the best result? Not just a good or acceptable result. Did the investment hearn the highest reward open to you? IF not, you failed.” (33)

“Skill does matter… But it is not the starting place for the best use of talent. Passion is, and passion makes the highest skills possible.” (33)

“Relying on pure luck is an invitation to disaster. Most people will have to fight to find their way. They’ll have to earn it in a way the lucky will never fully appreciate. Indeed, for most, the path is filled with twists and turns. It’s hard. But so what? Again, the important point is that it’s worth it.” (40)

“Teachers know that the best students learn easily because they love the subject. “Easily” does not mean quickly; “easily” does not mean without frustration and errors. What it means is that these students are driven to find answers, to overcome whatever obstacle appears. They learn their subjects because they have to.” (58)

“Remember that a great career requires having impact. And to have impact in any of your passions, you must persist in one of them at a time.” (68)

“Anyone entering a competitive field – which is now almost all fields and will shortly be all fields – needs to stop just doing what all the other students and applicants are doing.” (78)

“If your passion leads you to be in a competitive field, the sooner you start thinking of a way you can stand out or distinguish yourself from the rest of the competition, the better and happier and more successful you’ll be. That doesn’t necessarily mean just being at the top of your class. It’s more about finding that perfect opportunity to apply your skills in a way that allows you to truly follow your passion.” (78)

“If all you can produce from your work is a good result, you’re not generating a competitive response. You’re no better than most everyone else. So why would you expect to get any special advantage? You have to develop an attribute beyond skill. This means you need to create solutions that are highly innovative, solutions that are found in few other places, if any.” (107)

“Unfortunately, we are no longer in an era of “good enough.” (110)

“All the other steps are in vain unless you can mount an effective marketing campaign for yourself. The good news is you don’t have to say, “I am so great! Look at me!” but instead you can say, “I have some great ideas – what do you think about these/” Because if a person or company loves your ideas, they will want you.” (125)

“Words define you to the world and to yourself.” (131)

“You are an entrepreneur. And your venture is yourself – it’s a venture that has to be defined, polished, and marketed. The truth is, successful ventures and successful careers are much closer together than you might have thought. So put your startup face on, and let’s learn how to pitch yourself.” (131)

“The goal of the pitch is to invite further dialogue, dialogue with a purpose.” (132)

“A good pitch should be 1. Short 2. Distinctive (“I do something others do not.”) 3. Expressed in a way that invites the listener to ask for more information” (133)

“The goal is to be precise about the body of work you wish to create.” (135)

“The same is true in networking/marketing sessions. THe relationship between the person advancing an idea and the person listening to the argument is tenuous. So Bart, in response to the listener’s vague expression of interest, needed first to solidify that interest, as did Violet. The best way to do that is to surprise the listener with a relevant fact, not an opinion. One of the fastest ways to impress anyone is to tell them something that’s much different from what they would have assumed. No you look interesting, not just your idea. The listener is implicitly wondering what other surprises will be revealed. Offer just one surprising fact, not a blizzard of them.” (136)

“We live in the Age of Victimization. We are all victims now. There are so many victims, in fact, it’s hard to find the oppressors.” (167)

“Harvard University helmed a study of 50,000 adults in 25 countries that showed that the daughters of working mothers had more education, were more likely to be employed and in supervisory roles, and had more robust incomes than daughters of stay-at-home mothers.” (173)

“By focusing only on your role as a parent, you have given up being a role model for your kids’ career life. The best thing to do is to lead by example, so that you are never in the situation where your child comes to talk to you about his dream job and you think, I had a dream once too, kid, but then you were born.” (174)

“A great career means that there’s not just one path available to you.” (177)

“Balance presumes that you spend your life in separate compartments labeled life and work, and you move time between them. I reject this goal. You should be trying to integrate your work and your life so each supports the other, making the whole stronger as a result.” (181)

“A great career means at the end of it and at the end of your life, you leave your mark behind. You leave your work behind to speak for you.” (187)

“IF she wanted to make a living at her passion, she needed to see herself in the context of what others would pay for her work. For many in the artistic and performing worlds, this is a radical thought.” (201)

“Just being competent, and being certified as competent, does not get you your job, which is especially true in a field where there are few openings.” (203)

“If you’re the child of an immigrant family that took great risk to leave a familiar place to resettle in a foreign land, recognize the sacrifice that your family made for your benefit. Of course, you are at liberty to point out their inconsistent position: that they want you to take no risk, even as they took a major risk.” (235)

“When your child is using his talent to its fullest, he is most likely to be both happy and successful.” (236)

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