Thinking Quotes

I don't feel American. I do feel like a New Yorker. I think there's a real distinction there. A city allows you to become a citizen even when you're not a national.

You don't that often see writers being sought out when there are matters of great moment to discuss. And I think that's a loss.

When I'm writing a book, sentence by sentence, I'm not thinking theoretically. I'm just trying to work out the story from inside the characters I've got.

The thing I really like about Twitter is the speed with which information reaches me. You find out things from Twitter long before they're on the news. That, I think, is valuable.

I don't know what to say about literary critics. I think it's probably best to say nothing.

I'm a world expert on superhero comics. I think maybe only Michael Chabon knows more than me.

I don't think there really is much of a left in America, certainly by European standards even the left is quite right wing here.

I think people direct good films when they feel personal to them, not because it's a famous book or something. It has to something move over that and somehow become personal to the director.

I think anyone who knows me at all knows that I have been a movie addict all my life. I grew up in a city obsessed by cinema and where there are cinemas on every street corner.

For example, in my dorm, at the University of Kentucky, I had the only camera. I don't think anyone came to college with a camera, other than me.

I'm very involved in photographing America now, so I don't think of faraway places, as I did when I was young.

Typically I see it with photographers who go to a place like India or Nepal, and everything's so colorful and exotic and they think, therefore, a picture's been taken.

If you can just learn to think about the market first, you will have a big leg up on most people starting startups.

You never want to be in a place where an employee has vested 3 out of the 4 years of stock and they start thinking about leaving.

You also really want to take the time to think about how the market is going to evolve.You need a market that's going to be big in 10 years.

You want to think about what is the path for my first 10 or 15 employees going to be as the company grows.

Long term thinking is so rare anywhere, but especially in startups. This is a huge advantage if you do it.

You should think about for the next 10 years, you're going to be giving out 3-5% of the company every year.

... you can think about that for everyone you hire: will I bet the future of this company on this single hire? And that's a tough bar.

So it's worth some real up front time to think through the long term value and the defensibility of the business.

If you have several ideas that all seem pretty good, work on the one that you think about, when you're not trying to think about work.

Whatever the founder cares about, whatever the founders think are the key goals, that's going to be what the whole company focusses on.

You think you have this great idea that everyone's going to come join, but that's not how it works.

Firing people is one of the worst parts of running a company. Actually in my own experience, I think it is the worst.

I think the best thing you can do is be aware that as a first time founder you are likely to be a very bad manager.

If you're not in college and you don't know a cofounder, the next best thing I think is to go work at an interesting company.

As you grow, the productivity I think, goes down with the square of the number of employees if you don't make an effort.

The single word that matters most I think to keep the company productive as it grows is alignment.

I think Formula E truly has the potential to become the future of motorsport. Formula One is the past.

I always think that the party that offers the most hope and ideas for the future is the party that wins.

I do think there's a lot more we can do on the life agenda.

Politics are important but your soul lasts forever. So, you know, you make ... decisions on what you think is right or wrong and then you just go forward.

Two things help to keep one's job. First, let the boss think he's having his own way. Second, let him have it.

I think a lot of American poets are swimming-pool Soviets. A lot of them have taken the comfortable, self-protective route too often. I know that I certainly have. That's easy to do.

I think it [getting a gun] should be like getting a pilot's license. I think you should require training to get a license to have a gun.

The cooking side is the easier way to be creative. On the policy side, it's harder to think of new approaches to problems.

I think it's increasingly hard to have deep self-knowledge without entering the darkness in some way.

The spiritual mind is always metaphorical. Spiritual thinking is poetic thinking. It's always trying to put a very diaphanous experience into words, realizing all the while that words are inadequate.

I think we're inevitably going to be depressed when we focus the major part of our energy and attention on something that doesn't give us meaning, only material things.

I think there are families that are very kind and supportive of people's ability to change. People who come from such families may go through life without dipping into the dark night.

I think that critiquing the myths of our society and helping people find their way through them is a very important thing. It's a theme that goes through all of my work.

The beauty of America is that the average person always thinks she is above average.

You think you know yourself, the world. You believe you've got a bead on everybody else's bullshit, but what about your own?

I think it's therapeutic when we play. It's just like therapy.

Thank God I don't live in Los Angeles. I think if you're there the whole time it just gets out of proportion and you lose touch completely with reality.

I can never really remember what I look like. I'm just sort of neutral. I don't think I'm sort of, you know, hideous.

I hate those people that get up and they're amazing. I think you just have to be kind of wasted to go and do it.

I think movies lost a lot when they went to stereo and five-track sound.

Any time anyone makes a comic book into a movie, in some way, I think they have to kill the comic book.

I didn't go out of my way to get into this movie stuff. I think of myself as a writer.