Luck is where preparation meets opportunity. -- Randy Pausch

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. -- Mark Twain

A hacker on a roll may be able to produce–in a period of a few months–something that a small development group (say, 7-8 people) would have a hard time getting together over a year. IBM used to report that certain programmers might be as much as 100 times as productive as other workers, or more. -- Peter Seebach

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for. -- Greek philosopher Epicurus

Actually, the essence of boredom is to be found in the obsessive search for novelty. Satisfaction lies in mindful repetition, the discovery of endless richness in subtle variations on familiar themes. -- George Leonard, Mastery.

What I didn't understand was that the value of some new acquisition wasn't the difference between its retail price and what I paid for it. It was the value I derived from it. Stuff is an extremely illiquid asset. Unless you have some plan for selling that valuable thing you got so cheaply, what difference does it make what it's "worth?" The only way you're ever going to extract any value from it is to use it. And if you don't have any immediate use for it, you probably never will. -- Paul Graham

The number one reason people fail in life is because they listen to their friends, family, and neighbors. ~Napoleon Hill

If you are not willing to risk the usual you will have to settle for the ordinary. ~Jim Rohn

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. –Plato

Believe you can and you’re halfway there. –Theodore Roosevelt