Steve Sarner > Steve's Quotes

“Write drunk; edit sober.”
― Peter De Vries, Reuben, Reuben

“Entrepreneurship is "risky" mainly because so few of the so-called entrepreneurs know what they are doing.”
― Peter Drucker, Innovation and Entrepreneurship

“Democracy is even more important for what it prevents than for what it provides.”
― Clive James

“You gotta know when to be lazy. Done correctly, it's an art form that benefits everyone.”
― Nicholas Sparks, The Choice

“I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't be boring.”
― David Bowie

“The key is to take a larger project or goal and break it down into smaller problems to be solved, constraining the scope of work to solving a key problem, and then another key problem.
This strategy, of breaking a project down into discrete, relatively small problems to be resolved, is what Bing Gordon, a cofounder and the former chief creative officer of the video game company Electronic Arts, calls smallifying. Now a partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, Gordon has deep experience leading and working with software development teams. He’s also currently on the board of directors of Amazon and Zynga. At Electronic Arts, Gordon found that when software teams worked on longer-term projects, they were inefficient and took unnecessary paths. However, when job tasks were broken down into particular problems to be solved, which were manageable and could be tackled within one or two weeks, developers were more creative and effective.”
― Peter Sims, Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries

“To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.”
― Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Vol. 3: American Statesmen

“You are what what you eat eats.”
― Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“The pleasure from eating, Dan, is more than the taste of the food and the feeling of a full belly. Learn to enjoy the entire process — the hunger beforehand, the careful preparation, setting an attractive table, chewing, breathing, smelling, tasting, swallowing, and the feeling of lightness and energy after the meal. You can even enjoy the full and easy elimination of the food after it’s digested. When you pay attention to all elements of the process, you'll begin to appreciate simple meals.”
― Dan Millman

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
― Mary Oliver

“But now she couldn’t deny what was staring her plainly in the face: dogs in China ate better than doctors in North Korea.”
― Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

“A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.”
― John le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy

“A North Korean soldier would later recall a buddy who had been given an American-made nail clipper and was showing it off to his friends. The soldier clipped a few nails, admired the sharp, clean edges, and marveled at the mechanics of this simple item. Then he realized with a sinking heart: If North Korea couldn’t make such a fine nail clipper, how could it compete with American weapons?”
― Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

“IF YOU LOOK AT SATELLITE PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE FAR EAST by night, you’ll see a large splotch curiously lacking in light. This area of darkness is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”
― Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

“Never, ever ever ever ever give up.”
― Winston Churchill

“The mountains are calling and I must go.”
― John Muir

“You have kids and you think I made you, so we're the same, but it's not true. You just get to live with them for a while and maybe help them figure things out.”
― Noah Hawley, Before the Fall

“When shall we three meet again, in thunder, lightning, or in rain?”
― William Shakespeare, Macbeth

“It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.”
― Maya Angelou

“History is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was ploughing fields and carrying water buckets.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“Well done is better than well said.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

“You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take.”
― Wayne Gretzky

“Don't think you haven't lived long enough to have a story to tell.”
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

“Stories are important, the monster said. They can be more important than anything. If they carry the truth.”
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

“You do not write your life with words...You write it with actions. What you think is not important. It is only important what you do.”
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

“There is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one. Most people are somewhere in between.”
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

“Some employees make products, some make sales; the CEO makes decisions. Therefore, a CEO can most accurately be measured by the speed and quality of those decisions.”
― Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers