“If you want an average, successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths: 1) Become the best at one specific thing. 2) Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things”

— Timothy Ferriss , book Tools of Titans

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Timothy Ferriss 29

American author, entrepreneur, angel investor and public sp… 1977

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1999

“There are moments or periods when it would be wonderful to plan something and do it and have the thing only do what you planned to do, and then, there are other times when the destruction of those planned things becomes interesting to you. So then, it becomes a question of destroying – of destroying the planned forms; it's like an escape, it's something to do, something to begin the situation. You yourself, you don't decide, but if you want to paint, you have to find out some way to start this thing off, whether it is painting it out or putting it in..”

Franz Kline (1910–1962) American painter

n.p.
1960's, Living Art, 1963

“If something takes too long, something happens to you. You become all and only the thing you want and nothing else, for you have paid too much for it, too much in wanting and too much in waiting and too much in getting.”

Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989) American poet, novelist, and literary critic

“…You don’t want the best of times to be just one thing, forever. You have to have a lot of bests of times, each one topping the last. You know?”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“There are two things that I want you to make up your minds to: first, that you are going to have a good time as long as you live – I have no use for the sour-faced man – and next, that you are going to do something worthwhile, that you are going to work hard and do the things you set out to do.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Talk to schoolchildren in Oyster Bay, Christmastime (1898), as quoted in The Bully Pulpit : A Teddy Roosevelt Book of Quotations (2002) by H. Paul Jeffers, p. 22
1890s

“What you want, my lad, and what you're going to get are two very
different things.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Source: Right Ho, Jeeves

“If you want to write fiction, the best thing you can do is take two aspirins, lie down in a dark room, and wait for the feeling to pass.”

Lawrence Block (1938) American writer

Source: Writing the Novel: From Plot to Print

“Now I know how it can change, just like that. They can be applauding you one moment, and booing you the next. The thing to know is that you have done a good job, then it doesn’t hurt to be criticized.”

Cary Grant (1904–1986) British-American film and stage actor

Love – That’s All Cary Grant Ever Thinks About (1964)
Context: I used to hide behind the façade that was Cary Grant … I didn’t know if I were Archie Leach, or Cary Grant, and I wasn’t taking any chances. … Another thing I had to cure myself of was the desire for adulation, and the approbation of my fellow man. It started when I was a small boy and played football at school. If I did well they cheered me. If I fumbled I was booed. It became very important to me to be liked. It’s the same in the theater, the applause and the laughter give you courage and the excitement to go on. I thought it was absolutely necessary in order to be happy. Now I know how it can change, just like that. They can be applauding you one moment, and booing you the next. The thing to know is that you have done a good job, then it doesn’t hurt to be criticized. My press agent was very indignant over something written about me not too long ago. “Look,” I told him. “I’ve known this character for many years, and the faults he sees in me are really the faults in himself that he hates.”

“It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away. You must want it just enough, and you must be very tactful with Gods or the gods.”

John Steinbeck book The Pearl

Source: The Pearl

“I know you want it to stay pleasant around here, but — there are so many things … that are so much better. Like silly, or sexy, or dangerous … or brief. And every one of those things is in you all the time, if you just have the guts to look for them.”

Gary Ross (1956) American film director

David Wagner/Bud Parker
Pleasantville (1998)

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