“I have a definition of success.”

Throw yourself into life as someone who makes a difference, accepting that you may not understand how or why.

It is the tuning of the universe… It’s as if at the beginning of the symphony God turns up the volume just a tiny bit.

If you make a mistake, celebrate.

The conductor of an orchestra doesn’t make a sound. He depends, for his power, on his ability to make other people powerful.

This is the moment — this is the most important moment right now. Which is: We are about contribution. That’s what our job is. It’s not about impressing people. It’s not about getting the next job. It’s about contributing something.

Who am I being that my players’ eyes are not shining?

The job of the leader is to speak to the possibility.

I make myself a relentless architect of the possibilities of human beings.

We can replace the narratives that hold us back by inventing wiser stories, free from childish fears, and, in doing so, disperse long-held psychological stumbling blocks.

how absurd human beings are and how magnificent.

Look at their eyes. If their eyes are shining, you know you’re doing it.

How often do we stand convinced of the truth of our early memories, forgetting that they are assessments made by a child?

Everybody loves classical music they just don’t know about it yet.

It’s one of the characteristics of a leader that he not doubt for one moment the capacity of the people he’s leading to realize whatever he’s dreaming. Imagine if Martin Luther King had said, ‘I have a dream. Of course, I’m not sure they’ll be up to it.

Live the rest of your life in possibility

Life is revealed as a place to contribute and we as contributors. Not because we have done a measurable amount of good, but because that is the story we tell.

Solutions to problems often depend upon how they’re defined.

Goals too clearly defined can become blinkers.

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.

Ultimately, that is the definition of bravery: not being afraid of yourself.

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; – poetry = the best words in the best order.

My attitude to peace is rather based on the Burmese definition of peace – it really means removing all the negative factors that destroy peace in this world.

My definition of slavery is the deprivation of human volition, any form of relationship between two peoples which is based on the deprivation of volition of one side.

I don’t know what the definition of pornography is and nobody else does either. Pornography is somebody else’s erotica that you don’t like.