"There's a lot of potential that goes unused in places like South Central L.A., a lot of brilliant, smart people who just don't have that chance to show it."

"I studied the lives of great men and famous women and I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm and hard work."

"Dreaming is good but dreaming without action makes you a dreamer. Stop dreaming and start acting. That is the only way to take your mental picture to a reality series that can lead to a successful venture."

"As if these daily humiliations and sacrifices mean something, are tallied by the ones who keep the books. Tomorrow we pick up where we left off. Sleep tight. Sleep deep. Sleep the sleep of the successful because somehow you made it through the day without anyone finding out that you are a complete fraud."

"Robust systems have a dynamic hierarchy of nested behaviors. How many moves ahead are you able to think when playing chess? How much effort are you willing to commit to understanding the deeply nuanced structure? Probably, success is not what you think it is. Adventures require novelty. Value has interesting surprises."

"I'd worked in the state senate in college and seen how important legal decisions were. And at the last minute, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison said, 'Why don't you come do an internship?' That turned into almost 15 years in the government, in the White House, and at the State Department."

"Your Success is defined not by what you did, but the gap between what you intended and what you finally achieved marks the relative degree of success. The more you meet your expectations, more successful you're as an individual. That's a sign of true marksmanship, not otherwise."