“[…] his own father told him that talent is sort of a dark gift, that talent is its own expectation: it is there from the start and either lived up to or lost.”

“Talent is its own expectation, Jim: you either live up to it or it waves a hankie, receding forever.”

“We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities but its own talents.”

“Have a father who lived up to his own promise and then found thing after thing to meet and surpass the expectations of his promise in, and didn't seem just a whole hell of a lot happier or tighter wrapped than his own failed father, leaving you yourself in a kind of feral and flux-ridden state with respect to talent.”

“The seventh gift is Talent. May you discover your own special abilities and contribute them toward a better world.”

“To succeed. Start by unlocking the gifts and the talents in you To bring out the potential, the power in you”