“Failure isn't something to be embarassed about; it's just proof that you're pushing your limits, trying new things, daring to innovate.”

“We've got to simplify, pull back all these layers of supposed complexity , and get down to the essentials. If we want people to engage with government, we should use the same tools that are getting them engages with companies and institutions in private life. If we want people to care about political issues, we should give them a way to understand and get involved in them.”

“The jobs in the greatest demand in the future don't yet exist and will require workers to use technologies that have not yet been invented to solve problems that we don't yet even know are problems.”

“Last week, our picture windowProduced a half-word,Heavy and hollow,Hit by a brown bird.We stood and watched her gape like a rattlesnakeAnd pant and labor over every intake.I said a sort of prayer for some rare grace,Then thought i ought to take her to a higher place.Said, “dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you,And though you die, bird, you will have a fine view.”

“the signifieds butt-heads with the signifiersand we all fall down slackjawed to marvel at wordswhile across the sky sheet impossible birdsin a steady illiterate movement homewards.”

“When dreaded outcomes are actually imminent we don't worry about themwe take action. Seeing lava from the local volcano make its way down the street toward our house does not cause worry it causes running. Also we don't usually choose imminent events as subjects for our worrying and thus emerges an ironic truth: Often the very fact that you are worrying about something means that it isn't likely to happen.”

“He cannot freshly harm me here, and for that I am grateful, but the harm he previously inflicted reverberates and grows. There is nothing to heal it but time. Even here, there is no other cure for heartbreak. I wish that death were a magical cure for all that ailed my spirit in life; it is one more thing I expected and found false. I arrive with the same baggage I carried with me in life. There is nowhere to lay it down here either, no more than a woman with child can lay aside her babe before its birth, for it is within me. I am as I was, just not encumbered with flesh.”