If you had 5 minutes to distill your type knowledge to someone, what would you say?

I'd say Robert Bringhurst said it best in his book, The Elements of Typographic Style: "Typography exists to honor content."

If I only had 5 minutes, and no more, I would say this: Do not worry about rules, expectations, using the right punctuation marks or dashes, making sure your kerning is perfect or worrying about if the point size is just right.

What you should be paying attention to is how typography feels. A lot of learning how to use type well is learning how to feel type on an emotional level, not just regurgitating a bunch of rules. Anyone can memorize what others tell them, but to really use type well it needs to be a dance between the medium and the designer.