Lucas Carlson > Quotes

“Stephen King once said every novel is just a long form letter to one person. The Term Sheet was secretly conceived as nothing more than my letter of gratitude to you. Any other woman would (and should) have left me long ago for all the crazy, half-baked, idiotic, ill-conceived silly things I have put you through. And yet without your love and support, none of this would have been possible.”
― Lucas Carlson, The Term Sheet

“In expert tennis, 80% of the points are won, while in amateur tennis, 80% are lost. The same is true for wrestling, chess, and investing: Beginners should focus on avoiding mistakes, experts on making great moves.” Erik Falkenstein”
― Lucas Carlson, Finding Success in Failure

“If you put junk in, you’re going to get junk out; but if you find inspiration, you’re going to come up with things that you would never think of otherwise. Your lungs breathe even when you don’t think about it. Your heart pumps without your help. Your brain is working on ideas and solutions even when you don’t realize it.”
― Lucas Carlson, Finding Success in Failure

“Did you know the New York Stock Exchange originated in a small café on Wall Street? It was run out of that same café until 1817.”
― Lucas Carlson, Big Data: A Startup Thriller Novel

“A Master Craftsman of Acting, like Daniel Day-Lewis, spends years selecting, preparing, and acting for just a single film. He is not like Nicolas Cage who always just plays Nicolas Cage in every film.”
― Lucas Carlson, The Craftsman Founder's Manifesto: Taking the Long View on Startup Strategy

“A child said What is the grass? Fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.” ​— ​Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”
― Lucas Carlson, The Term Sheet

“contumacious”
― Lucas Carlson, Big Data: A Startup Thriller Novel

“The Term Sheet A Startup Thriller Novel Lucas Carlson”
― Lucas Carlson, The Term Sheet

“People have to work for a living. There’s no way around it. Your parents worked for a living, my parents worked for a living. You have to work for a living too. Even if you move to Portland like every other millennial, you’d still have to do something. Drive”
― Lucas Carlson, The Term Sheet

“The real work of startups is about as sexy and fun as a root canal and about as natural as a jolly rancher. Founding”
― Lucas Carlson, The Craftsman Founder's Manifesto: Taking the Long View on Startup Strategy

“Doug could tell the man was a lawyer just by how he walked. So smug and full of himself. Three years in law school and pretentious English majors turn into unholy assholes.”
― Lucas Carlson, Big Data: A Startup Thriller Novel

“An old Cherokee Grandfather said to his grandson, who came to him with anger at a friend who had done him an injustice: “I too, at times, have felt a great hate for those that have taken so much, with no sorrow for what they do. “But hate wears you down, and does not hurt your enemy. It is like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die. I have struggled with these feelings many times. “It is as if there are two wolves inside me. One is good and does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him, and does not take offense when no offense was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way. “But the other wolf, ah! He is full of anger. The littlest thing sets him into a fit of temper. He fights everyone, all the time, for no reason. He cannot think because his anger and hate are so great. It is helpless anger, for his anger will change nothing. “Sometimes, it is hard to live with these two wolves inside me, for both of them try to dominate my spirit.” The boy looked intently into his Grandfather's eyes and asked, “Which one wins, Grandfather?” The Grandfather smiled softly and said, “The one I feed.”
― Lucas Carlson, The Craftsman Founder's Manifesto: Taking the Long View on Startup Strategy

“not like Nicolas Cage who always just plays Nicolas Cage in every film. Daniel”
― Lucas Carlson, The Craftsman Founder's Manifesto: Taking the Long View on Startup Strategy

“There was a full Argentine asado with the best cuts of meat available. Vacío, bondiola, bife, cuadril, paleta, molleja, entrecote.”
― Lucas Carlson, Big Data: A Startup Thriller Novel

“Conifer. It’s a dynamically typed Lisp without parenthesis tuned for machine learning.”
― Lucas Carlson, Big Data: A Startup Thriller Novel

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. ​— ​Winston Churchill”
― Lucas Carlson, The Term Sheet

“Doug thought about Georges-Eugène Haussmann, who, in the nineteenth century, tore down and rebuilt Paris. Before Haussmann, Paris had been a filthy rat’s nest of shit-covered streets. So he did what was needed, even though it wasn’t the most popular course of action. The historian Réné Héron de Villefosse once said: “The old ship of Paris was torpedoed by Baron Haussmann and sunk during his reign. It was perhaps the greatest crime of the megalomaniac prefect, and also his biggest mistake. His work caused more damage than a hundred bombings.”
― Lucas Carlson, Big Data: A Startup Thriller Novel

“Your past can either cripple you or empower you. You choose. You can let your feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and shame keep you working jobs that suck your soul. Or you can go out and, with a little luck and guidance, write a new story of your life. It can be post-traumatic stress or it can be post-traumatic growth that defines you. You know as well as I do that in reality you don’t have a choice.
You know as well as I do that in reality you don’t have a choice. Your skeletons chase you no matter where you hide. It’s about time to find your inner strength to pull through and make something of yourself.”
― Lucas Carlson, Finding Success in Failure: True Confessions From 10 Years of Startup Mistakes