“To me, the most shocking thing about grit is how little we know, how little science knows, about building it.”

Grit and self-control are related, but they’re not the same thing.

When people tell me I can’t do something, I have a visceral reflex to say, ‘Yes, I can.’

I think the questions on the grit scale about not letting setbacks disappoint you, finishing what you begin, doing things with focus, I think that those are things I would aspire to or hope for for all our children.

Striving is exhausting. Sometimes I do say things like, ‘I wish I were not quite this driven to be excellent.’ It’s not a comfortable life. It’s not relaxed. I’m not relaxed as a person. I mean, I’m not unhappy. But… it’s the opposite of being comfortable.

If you are a young person who is wanting to develop a passion, you cannot expect anyone else to tell you what that passion would be.

There are so many things that kids care about, where they excel, where they try hard, where they learn important life lessons, that are not picked up by test scores.

My dad was not super-intentional in his parenting. He was very self-absorbed. I won’t say mean or selfish per se, but very self-absorbed. I think he was just thinking out loud.

Boredom is a very self-conscious emotion by definition. Interest is not. So you can actually be completely absorbed in something and, at certain points in your development, not even realize that you’re into it.

There are no shortcuts to true excellence.

I know that instructional time is a zero-sum game, but if we want kids to do well academically, it’s hard to imagine that happening if they don’t have some control over their attention.

Psychologists call this the maturity principle. My own life experience fits this principle to a T.

I believe kids should choose what they want to do, because it’s their life, but they have to choose something, and they can’t quit in the middle unless there’s a really good reason.

During all my undergrad years and in high school, I was involved in tutoring and public service. At Harvard, I spent over 35 hours a week doing service. I was a Big Sister, I worked for the homeless, the elderly; it was the epicenter of my focus.

There’s this really awesome theory of human motivation – that human beings all want three things. One is to be competent, one is to belong, and one is be free, as in to have choice: to not be told what to do but to choose what to do.

When people think of the word ‘drive,’ they often think you have it or you don’t, and that’s where we’re wrong.

I do feel it’s hard to be modest and humble and egoless when people are telling you you are so great and wanting to give you prizes and energy. I’m trying hard not to be an awful, narcissistic human being.

In the coffee houses, in the government buildings, in boats of Lake Geneva, people look at their watches and take refuge in time.

A producer has to know all about everything from set-building to costumes to acting.

I’d love to go and visit the Mosque in Mecca again, just for the sheer beauty of it, not for God – much the way a non-Catholic might go to Vatican City because of the beauty of the buildings and the artifacts.

The thing I’d really like to see is the old London Bridge, with all the old buildings around it like Shakespeare’s Globe.

All these buildings are like mountains I would like to climb, but I am forbidden.

The bird building her home on your windowsill has every nest destroyed before. The spider that is delicately weaving a masterpiece has had every single thread broken before. And despite it all, they try again.

I did climb about 80 buildings around the world and I climbed even the five tallest.

When I climb a building, I’ve been there already, and carefully planned how to start the climb as well as how to do it.