Quiet Quotes

“Introverts living under the Extrovert Ideal are like women in a man’s world,”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“The word introvert is not a synonym for hermit or misanthrope.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“I don’t really like being the guest at someone else’s party, because then I have to be entertaining. But I’ll host parties because it puts you at the center of things without actually being a social person.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Would you be surprised if I told you that the vaudevillean professor and the recluse who prefers a life of the mind are one and”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Csikszentmihalyi, who between 1990 and 1995 studied the lives of ninety-one exceptionally creative people in the arts, sciences, business, and government, many of his subjects were on the social margins during adolescence, partly because “intense curiosity or focused interest seems odd to their peers.” Teens who are too gregarious to spend time alone often fail to cultivate their talents “because practicing music or studying math requires a solitude they dread.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Putting theory into practice is hard for them,” writes Gallagher, “because their sensitive natures and elaborate schemes are unsuited to the heterogeneous rigors of the schoolyard.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“(Taking shelter in bathrooms is a surprisingly common phenomenon, as you probably know if you’re an introvert.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Train yourself to spend energy on what’s truly meaningful to you instead of on activities that look like they’ll deliver a quick buzz of money or status or excitement. Teach yourself to pause and reflect when warning signs appear that things aren’t working out as you’d hoped. Learn from your mistakes. Seek out counterparts (from spouses to friends to business partners) who can help rein you in and compensate for your blind spots.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“When introverts hit the number nine button and find they’ve lost a point, they slow down before moving on to the next number, as if to reflect on what went wrong. But extroverts not only fail to slow down, they actually speed up.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“She had trouble finding the sacred in the everyday; it seemed to be there only when she withdrew from the world.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Alan and his wife had worked all their lives, and managed to sock away a million dollars for retirement. But four months earlier he’d gotten the idea that, despite having no experience in the markets, he should buy a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of GM stock, based on reports that the U.S. government might bail out the auto industry. He was convinced it was a no-lose investment. After his trade went through, the media reported that the bailout might not happen after all. The market sold off GM and the stock price fell. But Alan imagined the thrill of winning big. It felt so real he could taste it. He held firm. The stock fell again, and again, and kept dropping until finally Alan decided to sell, at a big loss. There was worse to come. When the next news cycle suggested that the bailout would happen after all, Alan got excited all over again and invested another hundred thousand dollars, buying more stock at the lower price. But the same thing happened: the bailout started looking uncertain.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“naked lions are just as dangerous as elegantly dressed ones.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Extroverts get better grades than introverts during elementary school, but introverts outperform extroverts in high school and college. At the university level, introversion predicts academic performance better than cognitive ability.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Most leading in a corporation is done in small meetings and it’s done at a distance, through written and video communications,”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“The longer you pause to process surprising or negative feedback, the more likely you are to learn from it.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“In the Culture of Character, the ideal self was serious, disciplined, and honorable. What counted was not so much the impression one made in public as how one behaved in private. The word personality didn’t exist in English until the eighteenth century, and the idea of “having a good personality” was not widespread until the twentieth. But when they embraced the Culture of Personality, Americans started to focus on how others perceived them. They became captivated by people who were bold and entertaining. “The social role demanded of all in the new Culture of Personality was that of a performer,” Susman famously wrote. “Every American was to become a performing self.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“As children, our classroom desks are increasingly arranged in pods, the better to foster group learning, and research suggests that the vast majority of teachers believe that the ideal student is an extrovert.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“The amount of space per employee shrank from 500 square feet in the 1970s to 200 square feet in 2010, according to Peter Miscovich, a managing director at the real estate brokerage firm Jones Lang LaSalle.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“We tend to think of coolness as a pose that you strike with a pair of sunglasses, a nonchalant attitude, and drink in hand. But maybe we didn't choose these social accessories at random. Maybe we've adopted dark glasses, relaxed body language, and alcohol as signifiers precisely because they camouflage signs of a nervous system on overdrive. Sunglasses prevent others from seeing our eyes dilate with surprise or fear; we know from Kagan’s work that a relaxed torso is a hallmark of low reactivity; and alcohol removes our inhibitions and lowers our arousal levels. When you go to a football game and someone offers you a beer, says the personality psychologist Brian Little, “they’re really saying hi, have a glass of extroversion.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“a psychologist named Solomon Asch conducted a series of now-famous experiments on the dangers of group influence. Asch gathered student volunteers into groups and had them take a vision test. He showed them a picture of three lines of varying lengths and asked questions about how the lines compared with one another: which was longer, which one matched the length of a fourth line, and so on. His questions were so simple that 95 percent of students answered every question correctly. But when Asch planted actors in the groups, and the actors confidently volunteered the same incorrect answer, the number of students who gave all correct answers plunged to 25 percent.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“you want to make sure that your spouse cares what other people think. It’s better to mind too much than to mind too little.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Understanding your sweet spot can increase your satisfaction in every arena of your life, but it goes even further than that. Evidence suggests that sweet spots can have life-or-death consequences.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Open-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They’re associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure. Open-plan workers are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure and elevated stress levels and to get the flu; they argue more with their colleagues; they worry about coworkers eavesdropping on their phone calls and spying on their computer screens. They have fewer personal and confidential conversations with colleagues. They’re often subject to loud and uncontrollable noise, which raises heart rates; releases cortisol, the body’s fight-or-flight “stress” hormone; and makes people socially distant, quick to anger, aggressive, and slow to help others. Indeed,”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“He also suggests “No-Talk Thursdays,” one day a week in which employees aren’t allowed to speak to each other.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“That’s because top performers overwhelmingly worked for companies that gave their workers the most privacy, personal space, control over their physical environments, and freedom from interruption. Sixty-two percent of the best performers said that their workspace was acceptably private, compared to only 19 percent of the worst performers; 76 percent of the worst performers but only 38 percent of the top performers said that people often interrupted them needlessly.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“I learned to not worry so much about the outcome, but to concentrate on the step I was on and to try to do it as perfectly as I could when I was doing it.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Drowsy extroverts behind the wheel should be especially careful—at least until they increase their arousal levels by chugging coffee or cranking up the radio. Conversely, introverts driving in loud, overly arousing traffic noise should work to stay focused, since the noise may impair their thinking.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“His hypothesis was that extroverted leaders enhance group performance when employees are passive, but that introverted leaders are more effective with proactive employees.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Our schools should teach children the skills to work with others—cooperative learning can be effective when practiced well and in moderation—but also the time and training they need to deliberately practice on their own.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“The way forward, I’m suggesting, is not to stop collaborating face-to-face, but to refine the way we do it. For one thing, we should actively seek out symbiotic introvert-extrovert relationships, in which leadership and other tasks are divided according to people’s natural strengths and temperaments. The most effective teams are composed of a healthy mix of introverts and extroverts, studies show, and so are many leadership structures.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking