"I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker."
— Stanley Kubrick

"Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it ... he who doesn't ... pays it."
— Albert Einstein

"If one has failed to develop curiosity and interest in the early years, it is a good idea to acquire them now, before it is too late to improve the quality of life.
To do so is fairly easy in principle, but more difficult in practice. Yet it is sure worth trying. The first step is to develop the habit of doing whatever needs to be done with concentrated attention, with skill rather than inertia. Even the most routine tasks, like washing dishes, dressing, or mowing the lawn become more rewarding if we approach them with the care it would take to make a work of art. The next step is to transfer some psychic energy each day from tasks that we don’t like doing, or from passive leisure, into something we never did before, or something we enjoy doing but don’t do often enough because it seems too much trouble. There are literally millions of potentially interesting things in the world to see, to do, to learn about. But they don’t become actually interesting until we devote attention to them."
— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life)

"...Tolstoy, one of the most interesting men who ever lived, explains that mystery of "interestingness" and how it passes from writer to reader. It is an *infection*. And it is *immediate*. "
— Brenda Euland

"The only good teachers for you are those friends who love you, who think you are interesting, or very important, or wonderfully funny; whose attitude is:
"Tell me more. Tell me all you can. I want to understand more about everything you feel and know and all the changes inside and out of you. Let more come out."

And if you have no such friend,--and you want to write,--well, then you must imagine one. "
— Brenda Ueland (If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit)

"... low interest rates and cheap credit also cause people to act foolishly or greedily ..."
— Fareed Zakaria (The Post-American World)