Quiet Quotes

“Remember that there are many paths to a satisfying life.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“People with certain personality types got control of capital and institutions and power.
And people who are congenitally more cautious and introverted and statistical in their thinking became discredited and pushed aside.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Here is a blueprint to take with you: Figure out what you are meant to contribute to the world and make sure you contribute it. If this requires public speaking or networking or other activities that make you uncomfortable, do them anyway. But accept that they’re difficult, get the training you need to make them easier, and reward yourself when you’re done. Quit your job as a TV anchor and get a degree in library science. But if TV anchoring is what you love, then create an extroverted persona to get yourself through the day. Spend your free time the way you like, not the way you think you’re supposed to. Don’t mistake assertiveness or eloquence for good ideas.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“People would always tell me, ‘These are the best years of your life,’ ” he recalls. “And I would think to myself, I hope not! I hated school.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“True self-esteem comes from competence, not the other way around. Researchers have found that intense engagement in and commitment to an activity is a proven route to happiness and well-being. Well-developed talents and interests can be a great source of confidence for your child, no matter how different he might feel from his peers.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“The key is to expose your child gradually to new situations and people—taking care to respect his limits, even when they seem extreme. This produces more-confident kids than either overprotection or pushing too hard.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Prolonged acting out of character may also increase autonomic nervous system activity, which can, in turn, compromise immune functioning.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“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.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“I’m doing this to advance work I care about deeply, and when the work is done I’ll settle back into my true self.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Introverts are capable of acting like extroverts for the sake of work they consider important, people they love, or anything they value highly.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“If the idea is good, people shift. If the cause is just and you put heart into it, it’s almost a universal law: you will attract people who want to share your cause.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“When you look at big companies, almost none of the top executives are Asians. They hire someone who doesn’t know anything about the business, but maybe he can make a good presentation.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Researchers showed seventeen Americans and seventeen Japanese pictures of men in dominance poses (arms crossed, muscles bulging, legs planted squarely on the ground) and subordinate positions (shoulders bent, hands interlocked protectively over groin, legs squeezed together tight). They found that the dominant pictures activated pleasure centers in the American brains, while the submissive pictures did the same for the Japanese.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Extroverts are more likely to take a quick-and-dirty approach to problem-solving, trading accuracy for speed, making increasing numbers of mistakes as they go, and abandoning ship altogether when the problem seems too difficult or frustrating.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“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

“In the wake of the 2008 crash, a financial catastrophe caused in part by uncalculated risk-taking and blindness to threat, it became fashionable to speculate whether we’d have been better off with more women and fewer men—or less testosterone—on Wall Street.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Extroverts’ dopamine pathways appear to be more active than those of introverts. Another study found that extroverts who win gambling games have more activity in the reward-sensitive regions of their brains than victorious introverts do. Still other research has shown that the medial orbitofrontal cortex, a key component of the brain’s dopamine-driven reward system, is larger in extroverts than in introverts.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“High-reactive introverts sweat more; low-reactive extroverts sweat less. According to some of the scientists I spoke to, this is where our notion of being socially “cool” comes from; the lower-reactive you are, the cooler your skin, the cooler you are. Lie detectors (polygraphs) are partially skin conductance tests. They operate on the theory that lying causes anxiety, which triggers the skin to perspire imperceptibly.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“A kind woman hands a toy to a toddler, explaining that the child should be very careful because it’s one of the woman’s favorites. The child solemnly nods assent and begins to play with the toy. Soon afterward, it breaks dramatically in two, having been rigged to do so. The woman looks upset and cries, “Oh my!” Then she waits to see what the child does next. Some children, it turns out, feel a lot more guilty about their (supposed) transgression than others. They look away, hug themselves, stammer out confessions, hide their faces. And it’s the kids we might call the most sensitive, the most high-reactive, the ones who are likely to be introverts who feel the guiltiest.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“The highly sensitive tend to be philosophical or spiritual in their orientation, rather than materialistic or hedonistic.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“The footprint of a high- or low-reactive temperament never disappeared in adulthood. We can stretch our personalities, but only up to a point. Our inborn temperaments influence us, regardless of the lives we lead. A sizable part of who we are is ordained by our genes. We have free will and can use it to shape our personalities.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Physiological tendencies are buried deep in our cultural unconscious.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Psychologists usually offer three explanations for the failure of group brainstorming. The first is social loafing: in a group, some individuals tend to sit back and let others do the work. The second is production blocking: only one person can talk or produce an idea at once, while the other group members are forced to sit passively. And the third is evaluation apprehension, meaning the fear of looking stupid in front of one’s peers. The problem with evaluation apprehension is that there’s not much we can do about it. You’d think you could overcome it with will or training or a set of group process rules like Alex Osborn’s. But recent research in neuroscience suggests that the fear of judgment runs much deeper and has more far-reaching implications than we ever imagined.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Other people would get louder and louder, and I would get quieter and quieter.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Some of these twenty-seven attributes were familiar from Kagan and others' work. For example, highly sensitive people rend to be keen observers who look before they leap. They arrange their lives in ways that limit surprises. They're often sensitive to sights, sounds, smells, pain, coffee. They have difficulty when being observed (at work, say or performing at a music recital) or judged for general worthiness (dating, job interviews).”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Even though we can reach for the outer limits of our temperaments, it can often be better to situate ourselves squarely inside our comfort zones.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“We perceive talkers as smarter than quiet types-even though grade-point averages and SAT and intelligence test scores reveal this perception to be inaccurate.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“All the comments from childhood still ring in my ears, that I was lazy, stupid, slow, boring.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“No confunda la firmeza o la elocuencia con las buenas ideas.”
― Susan Cain, El poder de los introvertidos

“If you like to do things in a slow and steady way, don’t let others make you feel as if you have to race.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking