Speech

You are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. Like a muscle, you can build it up, draw on it when you need it. In that process, you will figure out who you really are — and you just might become the very best version of yourself.

Potential just means you haven't done it yet.

When life tells you no, ask yourself honestly, 'What am I capable of?' And once you know the answer, don't be afraid to let everyone else know it too.

If you know what you're capable of, if you're always prepared, and you keep things in perspective, then life has a way of turning no into yes.

In its passivity and resignation, cynicism is a hardening, a calcification of the soul. Hope is a stretching of its ligaments, a limber reach for something greater.

Construction is far more difficult because it requires the capacity to imagine something new and better, and the willingness to exert ourselves toward building it, even at the risk of failure.

The moment you focus on that, you vacate your own soul.

Love is not like mass or energy — it is not conserved.

You must be weak before the world, because love and listening weaken you. They make you vulnerable. They break you open.

Conversations about grass length and the weather are really conversations about how we are going to get through, and how we are going to get through together.

The life lessons that I learned at Cushing Academy, I carry with me every single day like you'd carry a cell phone, and I use them every single day like you use Instagram.

Enjoy today, because it only happens once. And this has been one hell of a ride.