“For every nine people who denounce innovation only one will encourage it...For every nine people who do things the way they have always been done, only one will ever wonder if there is a better way. For every nine people who stand in line in front of a locked building, only one will ever come around and check the back door. Our progress as a species rests squarely on the shoulders of that tenth person. The nine are satisfied with things they are told valuable. Person 10 determines from himself what has value.”

“What is an artist? For every thousand people there's nine hundred doing the work, ninety doing well, nine doing good, and one lucky bastard who's the artist.”

“Some doctors say a person who has only had same-sex attractions is, like, a zero. A person who has only had opposite-sex attractions is, like, a ten. He says most people fall between one and nine.”

“Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses. ”

“Ninety-nine percent of all failures come from people who have a habit of making excuses.”

“...a priest is someone willing to stand between a God and a people who are longing for one another's love, turning back and forth between them with no hope of tending either as well as each deserves. To be a priest is to serve a God who never stops calling people to do more justice and love more mercy, and simultaneously to serve people who nine times out of ten are just looking for a safe place to rest. To be a priest is to know that things are not as they should be and yet to care for them the way they are.”