“As our knees and hips and eyesight deteriorate, we become more dependable, less impulsive, kinder, and less moody.”

Being gritty doesn’t mean not showing pain or pretending everything is O.K. In fact, when you look at healthy and successful and giving people, they are extraordinarily meta-cognitive. They’re able to say things like, ‘Dude, I totally lost my temper this morning.’ That ability to reflect on yourself is signature to grit.

So when my daughter told me on the second track meet that she was done with it because she discovered she didn’t like competing, I made her finish the season.

The focus on just thinking about standardized test scores as being synonymous with achievement for teenagers is ridiculous, right?

People who are really gritty – they’re still interested.

Most people who are really, enduringly interested in something eventually find that it’s important, too – and important to other people.

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.

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

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.

It was her way of getting out, and she would take me with her. I’d go home and act all the parts.

It had a tremendous influence on my becoming an actor.

Dopers become convinced they’ve hidden their stash so well a cop won’t find it. They’re always wrong.

And when you are in revolution, you become a much better person.

There are a number of teams that would become vastly improved with Drew Bledsoe.

Actors are always outsiders. It’s necessary to be able to interpret – and that gets distorted when you become famous.

I love work because it keeps sex in perspective. Otherwise, it can become a preoccupation.

My dad was in the army. World War II. He got his college education from the army. After World War II he became an insurance salesman.