Jim McKelvey quotes:

When I was 19 years old, I wrote my first book. I took a computer science class, and the book was garbage. I thought I could write a better one, so I did.

It's obvious that St. Louis has certain advantages compared to other cities: namely, a concentration of financial services.

This entrepreneurial energy that we have in the Midwest doesn't have to go out to the coasts to get fed and watered.

Everyone needs someone to tell them not to wear so much Prada.

In December 1989, my mother died very suddenly, and that sparked a re-evaluation of what I was doing, and I realized I was mediocre at everything. I was a mediocre IBM employee, I was a mediocre entrepreneur, I was a mediocre artist. I decided that, although my mom wouldn't be around to see it, I wanted to be great at something.

At Square, we got our tech up and running in three weeks, but it took us 18 months to get licenses, banking relationships and everything else we needed to be able to move money. We had to partner up with major companies to do it.

People who solve problems are happier.

I am absolutely confident that St. Louis can attract major players in technology and make the companies that are here blossom.

Art is what can't be proven mathematically, right, it's where science ends. It's the part that makes you feel good, but you don't know why.

It's hard to shape glass. It took me years of practice, and as a result, I've never gotten bored with it. It's difficult. Every time I come into the studio, I've got some sort of new challenge. And something that I would like to learn how to do better, and the material never disappoints me.

Glass really rewards risk. A lot of times with glass, you're just waiting for the piece to cool down or for some temperature to adjust, and there's split seconds where you've got a fraction of a second where you get to make a move a particular way, and you don't get to repeat it if you do it wrong.

If you can't be persuasive to get people to believe your crazy idea, you can just go ahead and build it.

We tend to believe that things are impossible that are very possible.