Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.

Luckily, I got at a very early age the idea that the safest way to try and get what you want is to try and deserve what you want. It's such a simple idea. It's the golden rule so to speak. You want to deliver to the world what you would buy if you were on the other end. There is no ethos, in my opinion, that is better for any lawyer or any other person to have.

Be ambitious beyond merely dreaming of the first book being published. Already now try to imagine where you want this to go, where you want to be at 60.

The challenge of a big, over-arching vision is that it's hard to know where to start. And your biggest opportunity will change from year to year. Technology changes. Competition changes. You change. My advice: Just start. Find a single unmet need that nudges the world closer to where you believe it's going. And if you hit a dead end, pivot.

if there is anyone who’s telling you, “Here’s what you should do,” they are somehow lying to you

At a basic level, I think something is successful if I think I got myself anywhere new at all.

I feel some sort of chemistry with the subject.…The bar for me is when it’s interesting enough that I would talk about it on my own time.

It used to be dosing people out of my purse at parties. Now it’s leaving the hang at 11 p.m. to get in bed.

I actually did write a novel. I worked on it for five years, and then I shelved it because it was bad.

the natural tendency to solidify a narrative that makes you look good