Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity.

I think you need to be a little in love—not necessarily in a romantic sense, although that helps—but to be in love with the reality of your own life.

What is needed isn't merely tolerance but acceptance, wholehearted and unconditional.

I didn't really - at least intellectually and creatively - have a particularly compelling experience in college. But during my junior year, they made the TED talks public. So I started listening to them. They were producing one per day, and I was listening to one per day, every day, at the gym.

Because it is possible to create - creating one's self, willing to be one's self - one has anxiety. One would have no anxiety if there were no possibility whatever.

Artist Allen Crawford brings Whitman's undying text to new life in gorgeous hand-lettering and illustrations, transforming the 60-page poem originally published in 1855 as the centerpiece of Leaves of Grass into a breathtaking 256-page piece of art.

In order for us to truly create and contribute to the world, we have to be able to connect countless dots, to cross-pollinate ideas from a wealth of disciplines, to combine and recombine these pieces and build new castles.

But most weeks I've gone through 12 books, maybe even 15 some weeks, depending on the length. So I go through my long form, and then my day begins. I usually try to do most of my writing earlier in the day because I sort of lump out later on.

Universal WiFi. Without a doubt. I am done with being on the train, not having internet. Or having spotty coverage. It's a fundamental need at this point. It's the frickin' information age! It should be like air! And it doesn't have to be free. I'm a believer in paying for value. Just having it as an option.

Build pockets of stillness into your life.

You enrich people with creative resources, and over time, these Lego bricks that end up in their heads eventually build this enormous, incredible castle.

Curation is a form of pattern recognition - pieces of information or insight which over time amount to an implicit point of view.

he cult of productivity has its place, but worshipping at its altar daily robs us of the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living...