"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."

"Society functions in a way much more interesting than the multiple-choice pattern we have been rewarded for succeeding at in school. Success in life comes not from the ability to choose between the four presented answers, but from the rather more difficult and painfully acquired ability to formulate the questions."

"It's in the preparation-in those dreary pedestrian virtues they taught you in seventh grade and you didn't believe. It's making the extra call and caring a lot."

"Professor Khupe felt his chest swell with pride. It was doing so without his encouragement. If an electrical fault had stopped the elevator from rising, his inflating ego would have powered the remainder of their journey to the twenty-second floor."

"William James described success as a combination of two things. An inner ideal which is followed persistently with courage and Outer achievement related to that ideal."