Quotes from James Altucher

perfectionism is sometimes the most dangerous set of thoughts you can let make their home in your head.

Only free time, imagination, creativity, and an ability to disappear will help you deliver value that nobody ever delivered before in the history of humankind.

Habits. It's the 5x5 rule. You are not just the average of the five people around you. You're the average of the five habits you do, the things you eat, the ideas you have, the content you consume, etc.

When the groundwork is done, when we ask for help, when we surround ourselves with those who will respect our time to speak up and hear what we need to share, we are let in on a huge and powerful secret: we reach God much more easily through other people's ears.

Collisions are the fundamental life-giving processes of the universe. Ideas are no different. The best ideas come from collisions between newer and older ideas.

There's a saying, "The learned man aims for more. But the wise man decreases. And then decreases again.

The best ideas are when you take two older ideas that have nothing to do with each other, make them have sex with each other, and then build a business around the bastard, ugly child that results. The child who was so ugly nobody else wanted to touch it. Look at Facebook: combine the Internet with stalking. Amazing!

There is nobody you need to impress. There is nobody who is judging you. And there will be nobody who can stop you.

I'm going to repeat this: I buy experiences and not things. I don't like to buy my kids' gifts. But I'll take them places and won't hold back. They will lose and forget the "things" in the long run. But they will never forget the experiences.

Despair = Suffering - Meaning.

Excuses are easy lies we tell ourselves to cover up our failures.

Noticing your reactions to suffering, anger, pain is the key to well-being.

I could be reading a book. Time is also a limited resource. You can respond to a comment on Facebook with an opinion no one will care about in a hundred years, or you can do something. Right now. You can take a walk by the river. Or you can kiss someone. Or you can jump on a trampoline.

Life is a gift. Don't let your ego get in the way of fully experiencing and appreciating it. When we were kids, we laughed and asked question. As adults, we cry and shout answers. Sometimes it's good to feel like a kid again, even at age 75.

You can't help others if you look in the mirror and hate what you see.

is a beacon. Your honesty—saying no to the lying—is what will bring the lost ships home. It's what will bring health, love, and money to you.

Anger is a form of dishonesty. Nobody is perfect. It's a lie to expect the people around you to be perfect.

Only read the books you enjoy, that make you happy to be human. Only go to the events that actually make you laugh or fall in love. Only deal with the people who love you back, who are winners and want you to win too.

Harry Bernstein was a total failure when he wrote his bestselling memoir, The Invisible Wall. His prior forty (forty!) novels had been rejected by publishers. When his memoir came out, he was ninety-three years old. A quote from him: "If I had not lived until I was 90, I would not have been able to write this book, God knows what other potentials lurk in other people, if we could only keep them alive well into their 90s.

Reading is the best return on investment. You have to live your entire life in order to know one life. But with reading you can know 1000s of people's lives for almost no cost. What a great return!

Wake up early. Avoid distractions. Work three to five hours a day and then enjoy the rest of the day. Be as perfectionist as you can, knowing that imperfection will still rule. Have the confidence to be magical and stretch the boundaries of your medium. Combine the tools of the medium itself with the message you want to convey. Don't get stuck in the same rut—move forward, experiment, but with the confidence built up over experience. Change the rules but learn them first.

Someone who is reinventing always has spare time. Part of reinvention is collecting little bits and pieces of time and carving them the way you want them to be. That is the Power of No in action: you say no to the superfluous distractions because you must find some time for you.

Barbara Cortland broke the world record. In 1983, she wrote 23 novels. She was 82 years old. Two novels a month that year. Altogether she wrote 723 published novels. The last she wrote at age 97. When she died a year later, there were 160 unpublished novels still waiting to be published. Did people like her work? Depending on what estimate you use, she sold between 600 million and 2 billion books. Most of her books were romance novels.

But don't limit yourself too much either. Always be looking for new opportunities to improve incrementally.