Scientists don’t know what they are talking about when they talk about religion. Religion has nothing to do with belief, and I don’t believe it has any negative impact on people’s lives outside of intolerance. Why do I go to church? It’s like asking, why did you marry that woman? You make up reasons, but it’s probably just smell. I love the smell of candles. It’s an aesthetic thing.
Avoid being thought of as being overly egotistical: when the mask slips, there you are.
Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the words ‘impossible’, ‘never’, ‘too difficult’ too often, drop him or her from your social network. *Never take ‘no’ for an answer (conversely, take most ‘yeses’ as ‘most probably’).
Read books are far less valuable than unread ones.
Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel or a private jet.
Go to parties. You can’t even start to know what you may find on the envelope of serendipity. If you suffer from agoraphobia, send colleagues.
Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last recourse against randomness is how you act — if you can’t control outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will always have the last word.
Learn to fail with pride — and do so fast and cleanly. Maximise trial and error — by mastering the error part.
It’s not a good idea to take a forecast from someone wearing a tie. If possible, tease people who take themselves and their knowledge too seriously.
We cannot truly plan, because we do not understand the future–but this is not necessarily a bad news. We could plan while bearing in mind such limitations. It just takes guts.
If something is going on, I hear about it. I like to talk to people, I socialise. Television is a waste of time. Human contact is what matters.
