Thorstein Veblen

Life is like improvised jazz. We cannot regulate all the variables. We must play it with panache and flair as best we can.

Champions get what they want because they know what they want. They have a vision that keeps them motivated and efficiently on track. They see it, feel it, and experience it in their minds and hearts. What is success for you? You won’t get there without knowing what it feels and looks like.

My attitude is never to be satisfied, never enough, never.

As I get older, I just prefer to knit.

We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity.

Don’t ever confuse the two, your life and your work. The second is only part of the first.

Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

It is true that I am often startled and even angered and repulsed by the strange directions and provocative content of new forms that seem to pop up every few months.

Life experiences, mental illness, drugs, greed, environment, and poor role-modeling can all forge damaged people and can generate a darkness, an exploitiveness, in the way they approach life. Whatever their genesis, there are people in your life (and mine) who will hurt you if you let them.

The best way is always the simplest. The attics of the world are cluttered up with complicated failures.

Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses.

I only ask to be free, the butterflies are free.

Be your authentic self. Your authentic self is who you are when you have no fear of judgment, or before the world starts pushing you around and telling you who you’re supposed to be. Your fictional self is who you are when you have a social mask on to please everyone else. Give yourself permission to be your authentic self.

I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.