L.A. is a very illusory place. You don't really know who your friends are here because more often than not, it seems like it's just about getting ahead at any cost.

It's just so nice when your pet isn't all needy. I need a lot of space, so dogs suffocate me.

I come from a very small place in Eastern Europe, so my whole life has kind of been one big fight to live my dream against all odds. But I think it's hard to be a human in general - we all have our own struggles and things to overcome. That's why it's so important to always have compassion.

I think being vulnerable and real in the wolrd of fakeness is the bravest thing a person can do.

Science and vision are not opposites or even at odds. They need each other. I sometimes hear other startup folks say something along the lines of: 'If entrepreneurship was a science, then anyone could do it.' I'd like to point out that even science is a science, and still very few people can do it, let alone do it well.

I enjoyed mathematics from a very young age. At the beginning of college, I had this illusion, which was kind of silly in retrospect, that if I just understood math and physics and philosophy, I could figure out everything else from first principles.

I don't know of many people who've done sex research with an eye toward people saying sex is bad for you, except for the promiscuity and cervical cancer link - which is actually a valid discovery.

In some ways I'm a frustrated scientist or mathematician. The amount of times I've thought I'd go back to university and do theoretical physics because I like the big questions, but really I know now that that's not quite me. What's me is to do it in novels.