I won a Marshall scholarship to read philosophy at Oxford, and what I most wanted to do was strengthen public intellectual culture - I'd write books and essays to help us figure out who we wanted to be.

When I was a teenager, what I most wanted to read were fantasy novels. Not Tolkien and Malory, but sword-and-sorcery pulp. I craved glowy blue magic, chainmail bikinis, dragons with unpronounceable names.

I always wanted to be the best and to get the most out of myself.

I get energy from one-on-one conversations most often, and I lose energy from group conversations most often.

Your network is the people who want to help you, and you want to help them, and that's really powerful.

I wanted to write.