Quiet Quotes

“I could literally go years without having any friends except for my wife and kids,” he says. “Look at you and me. You’re one of my best friends, and how many times do we actually talk—when you call me! I don’t like socializing.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“A man has as many social selves as there are distinct groups of persons about whose opinion he cares. He generally shows a different side of himself to each of these different groups. —WILLIAM JAMES”
― 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.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Aron and a team of scientists have also found that when sensitive people see faces of people experiencing strong feelings, they have more activation than others do in areas of the brain associated with empathy and with trying to control strong emotions. It’s as if, like Eleanor Roosevelt, they can’t help but feel what others feel.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Highly sensitive people also process information about their environments—both physical and emotional—unusually deeply. They tend to notice subtleties that others miss—another person’s shift in mood, say, or a lightbulb burning a touch too brightly.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Introverts often have one or two deep interests that are not necessarily shared by their peers. Sometimes they’re made to feel freaky for the force of these passions, when in fact studies show that this sort of intensity is a prerequisite to talent development. Praise these kids for their interests, encourage them, and help them find like-minded friends, if not in the classroom, then outside it.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Studies show that one third to one half of us are introverts. This means that you have more introverted kids in your class than you think. Even at a young age, some introverts become adept at acting like extroverts, making it tough to spot them. Balance teaching methods to serve all the kids in your class. Extroverts tend to like movement, stimulation, collaborative work. Introverts prefer lectures, downtime, and independent projects. Mix it up fairly.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“kids stop learning when they feel emotionally threatened.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“extroverts do not necessarily seek closeness from their socializing. “Extroverts seem to need people as a forum to fill needs for social impact, just as a general needs soldiers to fill his or her need to lead,” the psychologist William Graziano told me. “When extroverts show up at a party, everyone knows they are present.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Introverts are not smarter than extroverts. According to IQ scores, the two types are equally intelligent. And on many kinds of tasks, particularly those performed under time or social pressure or involving multitasking, extroverts do better. Extroverts are better than introverts at handling information overload.”
― 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.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“If you force extroverts to pause, says Newman, they’ll do just as well as introverts at the numbers game.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“It also helps explain why extroverts are more prone than introverts to overconfidence—defined as greater confidence unmatched by greater ability.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“In fact, some scientists are starting to explore the idea that reward-sensitivity is not only an interesting feature of extroversion; it is what makes an extrovert an extrovert. Extroverts, in other words, are characterized by their tendency to seek rewards, from top dog status to sexual highs to cold cash.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“human extroverts have more sex partners than introverts do—a boon to any species wanting to reproduce itself—but they commit more adultery and divorce more frequently, which is not a good thing for the children of all those couplings. Extroverts exercise more, but introverts suffer fewer accidents and traumatic injuries. Extroverts enjoy wider networks of social support, but commit more crimes.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“all talking is selling and all selling involves talking,”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“LET YOUR FACE REFLECT CONFIDENCE, NOT WORRY! IT’S THE ‘LOOK’ OF YOU BY WHICH YOU ARE JUDGED MOST OFTEN.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“In our culture, guilt is a tainted word, but it’s probably one of the building blocks of conscience.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“The parents of high-reactive children are exceedingly lucky, Belsky told me. “The time and effort they invest will actually make a difference. Instead of seeing these kids as vulnerable to adversity, parents should see them as malleable—for worse, but also for better.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“We failed to realize that what makes sense for the asynchronous, relatively anonymous interactions of the Internet might not work as well inside the face-to-face, politically charged, acoustically noisy confines of an open-plan office. Instead of distinguishing between online and in-person interaction, we used the lessons of one to inform our thinking about the other.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Aron has noted that sensitive people tend to speak softly because that’s how they prefer others to communicate with them.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“If “fast” and “slow” animals had parties, writes the evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson, “some of the fasts would bore everyone with their loud conversation, while others would mutter into their beer that they don’t get any respect. Slow animals are best described as shy, sensitive types. They don’t assert themselves, but they are observant and notice things that are invisible to the bullies. They are the writers and artists at the party who have interesting conversations out of earshot of the bullies. They are the inventors who figure out new ways to behave, while the bullies steal their patents by copying their behavior.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Charlie Ledley and Jamie Mai, whose entire investment strategy was based on FUD: they placed bets that had limited downside, but would pay off handsomely if dramatic but unexpected changes occurred in the market.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“we organize many of our most important institutions—our schools and our workplaces—tells a very different story. It’s the story of a contemporary phenomenon that I call the New Groupthink—a phenomenon that has the potential to stifle productivity at work and to deprive schoolchildren of the skills they’ll need to achieve excellence in an increasingly competitive world.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“If you’re that rare engineer who’s an inventor and also an artist, I’m going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone. You’re going to be best able to design revolutionary products and features if you’re working on your own. Not on a committee. Not on a team.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“All of which raises the question, how did we go from Character to Personality without realizing that we had sacrificed something meaningful along the way?”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“early Americans revered action and were suspicious of intellect, associating the life of the mind with the languid, ineffectual European aristocracy they had left behind.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“we put too much of a premium on presenting and not enough on substance and critical thinking.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Spend your free time the way you like, not the way you think you’re supposed to. Stay home on New Year’s Eve if that’s what makes you happy. Skip the committee meeting. Cross the street to avoid making aimless chitchat with random acquaintances. Read. Cook. Run. Write a story.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“neuroscientists have even found that people who use Botox, which prevents them from making angry faces, seem to be less anger-prone than those who don’t, because the very act of frowning triggers the amygdala to process negative emotions.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking