“Psychological studies have recently shown that adversity can be a more powerful motivator than support. Successful people often remember being told that they could not do what they have, in fact, done brilliantly. Stubbornness drove them. Their parents or teachers have told them they will never make any money, or that they will never get a college degree, or that they will never marry and have children. The urge to prove authority wrong has often spurred human beings to unusual success.”

“It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings.”

“What a laugh, though. To think that one human being could ever really know another. You could get used to each other, get so habituated that you could speak their words right along with them, but you never knew why other people said what they said or did what they did, because they never even knew themselves. Nobody understands anybody. And yet somehow we live together, mostly in peace, and get things done with a high enough success rate that people keep trying. Human beings get married and a lot of marriages work, and they have children and most of them grow up to be decent people, and they have schools and businesses and factories and farms that have results at some level of acceptability—all without having a clue what’s going on inside anybody’s head. Muddling through, that’s what human beings do.that was the part of being human that Bean hated the most.”

“Risks are a measure of people. People who won't take them are trying to preserve what they have. People who do take them often end up having more.Some risks have a future, and some people call them wrong. But being right may be like walking backwards proving where you've been.Being wrong isn't in the future, or in the past.Being wrong isn't anywhere but being here.Best place to be, eh?”

“Teachers often fail students by complimenting the successful students and ignoring those who do not prove as successful. Teachers need to embrace and praise all children.”

“You are not as insignificant as you have often been told, nor are you any more significant than you have often told yourself.”