Independence

The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it's conformity.

Sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who will do the things that no one can imagine.

All happy companies are different because they're doing something very unique. All unhappy companies are alike because they failed to escape the essential sameness that is competition.

Don't always go through the tiny little door that everyone's trying to rush through. Maybe go around the corner and go through the vast gate that no one's taking.

Laughter is the most revolutionary emotion because it is free. It is the only emotion that is free. Fear can be compelled. Even love can be compelled. But laughter is an 'aha' of understanding — it's an orgasm of the mind.

From now on, you will be your own teacher, your own guide, your own critic. From now on, you fill out your own report card. Be an easy grader. Score yourself on a curve.

I think on some level, role models are overrated. Had I required that another black man from the Bronx had become an astrophysicist for me to become one, I'd still be in the Bronx.

Don't go to college. It's super expensive and super hard. Seriously, don't waste your time and money unless you want to be a doctor, then I totally get it. No one's going to let you take out their spleen unless you have a degree. The rest of you, go read some books.

Never let others define you. Define yourselves.

Hold on to your own. There will be compromises, but that's not one of them. The more you listen to your own instincts, the better you're going to serve yourself, the grander you will serve your industry, and the happier you will be in your work.

Please do not twist yourselves into shapes to please. Don't do it. If someone likes that version of you, that version of you that is false and holds back, then they actually just like that twisted shape, and not you.

Whereas children here had ghosts and the boogeyman, our equivalents were our governments.