Quiet Quotes

“Unhappy people tend to see setbacks as contaminants that ruined an otherwise good thing (“I was never the same again after my wife left me”), while generative adults see them as blessings in disguise (“The divorce was the most painful thing that ever happened to me, but I’m so much happier with my new wife”). Those who live the most fully realized lives—giving back to their families, societies, and ultimately themselves—tend to find meaning in their obstacles.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Nobody is going to care who won or lost any election when the earth is uninhabitable.” - Al Gore”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“If you don't love Jesus out loud, then it must not be real love. It's not enough to forge your own spiritual connection to the Divine. It must be displayed publicly.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Anyone can be a great negotiator, I told them, and in fact it often pays to be quiet and gracious, to listen more than talk, and to have an instinct for harmony rather than conflict. With this style, you can take aggressive positions without inflaming your counterpart’s ego. And by listening, you can learn what’s truly motivating the person you’re negotiating with and come up with creative solutions that satisfy both parties.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“This teacher was kind and well-intentioned, but I wonder whether students like the young safety officer would be better off if we appreciated that not everyone aspires to be a leader in the conventional sense of the word—that some people wish to fit harmoniously into the group, and others to be independent of it.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me—they’re shy and they live in their heads. They’re almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone where they can control an invention’s design without a lot of other people designing it for marketing or some other committee. I don’t believe anything really revolutionary has been invented by committee. 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

“a 2010 University of Michigan study shows that college students today are 40 percent less empathetic than they were thirty years ago, with much of the drop having occurred since 2000. (The study’s authors speculate that the decline in empathy is related to the prevalence of social media, reality TV, and “hyper-competitiveness.”)”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Now that you’re an adult, you might still feel a pang of guilt when you decline a dinner invitation in favor of a good book. Or maybe you like to eat alone in restaurants and could do without the pitying looks from fellow diners. Or you’re told that you’re “in your head too much,” a phrase that’s often deployed against the quiet and cerebral.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“College students who tend to study alone learn more over time than those who work in groups. Even elite athletes in team sports often spend unusual amounts of time in solitary practice.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Conversely, high-reactive children may be more likely to develop into artists and writers and scientists and thinkers because their aversion to novelty causes them to spend time inside the familiar—and intellectually fertile—environment of their own heads.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“it takes approximately ten thousand hours of Deliberate Practice to gain true expertise,”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“To ask whether it's nature or nurture, says Kagan, is like asking whether a blizzard is caused by temperature or humidity. It's the intricate interaction between the two that makes us who we are.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“In fact, the very thing that many high-reactives hate most about blushing— its uncontrollability— is what makes it so socially useful. “Because it is impossible to control the blush intentionally,” Dijk speculates, blushing is an authentic sign of embarrassment. And embarrassment, according to Keltner, is a moral emotion. It shows humility, modesty, and a desire to avoid aggression and make peace.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Deliberate Practice, which he has identified as the key to exceptional achievement. When you practice deliberately, you identify the tasks or knowledge that are just out of your reach, strive to upgrade your performance, monitor your progress, and revise accordingly. Practice sessions that fall short of this standard are not only less useful— they’re counterproductive. They reinforce existing cognitive mechanisms instead of improving them.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“The Extrovert Ideal has been documented in many studies, though this research has never been grouped under a single name. Talkative people, for example, are rated as smarter, better-looking, more interesting, and more desirable as friends. Velocity of speech counts as well as volume: we rank fast talkers as more competent and likable than slow ones.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“While extroverts tend to attain leadership in public domains, introverts tend to attain leadership in theoretical and aesthetic fields. Outstanding introverted leaders, such as Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, Patrick White and Arthur Boyd, who have created either new fields of thought or rearranged existing knowledge, have spent long periods of their lives in solitude. Hence leadership does not only apply in social situations, but also occurs in more solitary situations such as developing new techniques in the arts, creating new philosophies, writing profound books and making scientific breakthroughs.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“If a high-reactive toddler breaks another child's toy by mistake, studies show, she often experiences a more intense mix of guilt and sorrow than a lower-reactive child would. ...but high-reactive kids seem to see and feel things more.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“No!" Kagan exclaims. “Every behavior has more than one cause. Don’t ever forget that! For every child who’s slow to warm up, yes, there will be statistically more high-reactives, but you can be slow to warm up because of how you spent the first three and a half years of your life! When writers and journalists talk, they want to see a one-to-one relationship—one behavior, one cause. But it’s really important that you see, for behaviors like slow-to-warm-up, shyness, impulsivity, there are many routes to that.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Yet today we make room for a remarkably narrow range of personality styles. We’re told that to be great is to be bold, to be happy is to be sociable.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Proust called these moments of unity between writer and reader “that fruitful miracle of a communication in the midst of solitude.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“They dream vividly, and can often recall their dreams the next day. They love music, nature, art, physical beauty. They feel exceptionally strong emotions—sometimes acute bouts of joy, but also sorrow, melancholy, and fear. Highly sensitive people also process information”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Eleanor (Roosevelt) wasn’t the light, witty type he’d been expected to marry. Just the opposite: she was slow to laugh, bored by small talk, serious-minded, shy. Her mother, a fine-boned, vivacious aristocrat, had nicknamed her “Granny” because of her demeanor. Franklin was everything that she was not: bold and buoyant, with a wide, irrepressible grin, as easy with people as she was cautious. Eleanor craved intimacy and weighty conversations; he loved parties, flirting, and gossip.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“If you're in the backyard sitting under a tree while everyone else is clinking glasses on the patio, you're more likely to have an apple fall on your head.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“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. If you enjoy depth, don’t force yourself to seek breadth. If you prefer single-tasking to multi tasking, stick to your guns. Being relatively unmoved by rewards gives you the incalculable power to go your own way. It’s up to you to use that independence to good effect.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“solitude is an important key to creativity—then we might all want to develop a taste for it. We’d want to teach our kids to work independently. We’d want to give employees plenty of privacy and autonomy. Yet increasingly we do just the opposite.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“If you have talented and motivated people, they should be encouraged to work alone when creativity or efficiency is the highest priority.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Whoever you are, bear in mind that appearance is not reality.”
― 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

“Studies have shown that, indeed, introverts are more likely than extroverts to express intimate facts about themselves online that their family and friends would be surprised to read, to say that they can express the “real me” online, and to spend more time in certain kinds of online discussions. They welcome the chance to communicate digitally. The same person who would never raise his hand in a lecture hall of two hundred people might blog to two thousand, or two million, without thinking twice. The same person who finds it difficult to introduce himself to strangers might establish a presence online and then extend these relationships into the real world.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“bear in mind that appearance is not reality. Some people act like extroverts, but the effort costs them in energy, authenticity, and even physical health.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking