Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

by Susan Cain

How could you be shy and courageous?

Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but we’ve turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform.

“It’s not enough,” one senior manager at Eastman Kodak told the author Daniel Goleman, “to be able to sit at your computer excited about a fantastic regression analysis if you’re squeamish about presenting those results to an executive group.” (Apparently it’s OK to be squeamish about doing a regression analysis if you’re excited about giving speeches.)

The essence of the HBS education is that leaders have to act confidently and make decisions in the face of incomplete information.

The “Bus to Abilene” anecdote reveals our tendency to follow those who initiate action—any action.

he never stopped trying to become qualified for the job.

What’s so magical about solitude?

What created Linux, or Wikipedia, if not a gigantic electronic brainstorming session?

we can stretch our personalities, but only up to a point.

Extroverts appear to allocate most of their cognitive capacity to the goal at hand, while introverts use up capacity by monitoring how the task is going.

But as the word satyagraha implies, Gandhi’s passivity was not weakness at all. It meant focusing on an ultimate goal and refusing to divert energy to unnecessary skirmishes along the way.

First, think back to what you loved to do when you were a child. How did you answer the question of what you wanted to be when you grew up? The specific answer you gave may have been off the mark, but the underlying impulse was not. If you wanted to be a fireman, what did a fireman mean to you? A good man who rescued people in distress? A daredevil? Or the simple pleasure of operating a truck? If you wanted to be a dancer, was it because you got to wear a costume, or because you craved applause, or was it the pure joy of twirling around at lightning speed? You may have known more about who you were then than you do now.

“I told you not to bite,” said the swami, “but I did not tell you not to hiss.” “Many people, like the swami’s cobra, confuse the hiss with the bite,” writes Tavris.

that where we stumble is where our treasure lies.

The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some it’s a Broadway spotlight; for others, a lamplit desk.

Don’t mistake assertiveness or eloquence for good ideas.

So the next time you see a person with a composed face and a soft voice, remember that inside her mind she might be solving an equation, composing a sonnet, designing a hat. She might, that is, be deploying the powers of quiet.

Introverts are offered keys to private gardens full of riches. To possess such a key is to tumble like Alice down her rabbit hole. She didn’t choose to go to Wonderland—but she made of it an adventure that was fresh and fantastic and very much her own.