"Pick an important topic. This is perhaps easier said than done, because you must pick an important topic on which progress can be made. But it still seems remarkable to me how often people bypass what are more important subjects to work on less important ones."

Robert Trivers

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"Do some sustained thinking. To me this is easier than it sounds. There are no great intellectual gymnastics in my paper. I am not proving Fermat’s Last Theorem or generating Goedel’s Proof. I am only trying to think simply and clearly on an interesting and important subject. I was amazed when I went into academic work—and it still baffles me today—why so many people take the first available path off their main argument into trivia land. The sustained thinking must always be directed back to the key subject itself."