Malcolm Gladwell
The most influential thinker, in my life, has been the psychologist Richard Nisbett. He basically gave me my view of the world.
If my books appear to a reader to be oversimplified, then you shouldn't read them: You're not the audience!
Part of me thinks that innovation, real innovation in health care delivery, needs to happen from the bottom to the top.
We aren't, as human beings, very good at acting in our best interest.
When I go to my health club, and it's in the basement, you have to take the elevator down. And this drives me crazy. Why can't there be a stairway? At least make it as easy to exercise as it is to not exercise. It's in society's interest for me to take the stairs.
I have never read any Tolstoy. I felt badly about this until I read a Bill Simmons column where he confessed that he'd never seen 'The Big Lebowski.' Simmons, it should be pointed out, has seen everything. He said that everyone needs to have skipped at least one great cultural touchstone.
My mother read me biblical stories at night.
If you think advantage lies in resources, then you think the best educational system is the one that spends the most money.
That term, 'David and Goliath,' has entered our language as a metaphor for improbable victories by some weak party over someone far stronger.
As a writer, the best mindset is to be unafraid.
I try to be unafraid of making a fool of myself.
Rarely do we stop and consider whether the most prestigious of institutions is always in our best interest.
I grew up in southwestern Ontario in the heart of a Mennonite community. All my family are part of the Mennonite church.
All my books are optimistic!
We all assume that if you're weak and poor, you're never going to win. In fact, the real world is full of examples where the exact opposite happens, where the weak win and the strong screw up.
I've had the most untraumatic life a human being can have. But I've always been drawn to those who have had far more complicated histories.
If you're smarter than me, you shouldn't be reading my books.
If I was President of the United States, I'd rather be right than interesting. If I was CEO of a company, I'd rather be right than interesting. But I'm a journalist - what journalist would rather be right than interesting?
I'm a lot more interested in people than I used to be. I used to be most interested in abstract ideas, and people were an afterthought, but that's changed a bit.
I don't want a door bell. I don't want anyone ringing my door bell... seems to be intrusive. They can call me on their cell phones.
I don't understand, given the constraints physicians have in doing their job and the paperwork demanded of them, why people want to be physicians. I think we've made it very, very difficult for them to perform their job. I think that's a shame.
A handicap is like trying to race and you have a ten pound weight stuck to your waist. That is a handicap.
There is an important idea in psychology: The 'just world theory,' which says that it is very important for us to convince ourselves that the world is just and things happen for a reason. That there is some elemental fairness in everything, which creates the illusion of justice.
For some small number of people, a parental loss appears to be, ultimately, a desirable difficulty - again, not a large number.
If you are going to do something truly innovative, you have to be someone who does not value social approval. You can't need social approval to go forward. Otherwise, how would you ever do the thing that you are doing?
I remember as a kid watching one of the Olympic games, and I was cheering for a big track athlete. He was the favorite to win, and he lost. I realized in that moment the pain he felt was so much greater than the pain that those who never thought they were going to win would have felt had they lost.
I am far more distress-avoidant than I am joy-seeking.
All three of the great waves of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century European immigrants to America innovated.
Books about spies and traitors - and the congressional hearings that follow the exposure of traitors - generally assume that false-negative errors are much worse than false-positive errors.
People in great institutions are occasionally credulous.
In the government's eyes, the Branch Davidians were a threat.
Countless religious innovators over the years have played the game of establishing an identity for themselves by accentuating their otherness.
A runner needs not just to be skinny but - more specifically - to have skinny calves and ankles, because every extra pound carried on your extremities costs more than a pound carried on your torso. That's why shaving even a few ounces off a pair of running shoes can have a significant effect.
The paradox of endurance sports is that an athlete can never work as hard as he wants, because if he pushes himself too far, his hematocrit will fall.
When people from organizations like the World Bank descended on Third World countries, they always tried to remove obstacles to development, to reduce economic anxiety and uncertainty.
The two contemporary writers whom I consider as role models are Janet Malcolm and Michael Lewis.
In my mid-adolescence, my friend Terry Martin and I became obsessed with William F. Buckley. This makes more sense when you realize that we were living in Bible Belt farming country miles from civilization. Buckley seemed impossibly exotic.
I don't think I will ever write about politics or foreign policy. I feel like there is so much good writing in those areas that I have little to add. I also like to steer clear of writing about people whom I do not personally like.
My rule is that if I interview someone, they should never read what I have to say about them and regret having given me the interview.
I don't golf. I've never golfed. I will never golf.
You walk into the class in second grade. You can't read. What are you going to do if you're going to make it? You identify the smart kid. You make friends with him. You sit next to him. You grow a team around you. You delegate your work to others. You learn how to talk your way out of a tight spot.
Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good.Collection: Inspirational
Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard.Collection: Hard Work
Instead of thinking about talent as something that you acquire, talent should be thought of as something that you develop.Collection: Thinking
If everyone has to think outside the box, maybe it is the box that needs fixing.Collection: Thinking
That's your responsibility as a person, as a human being - to constantly be updating your positions on as many things as possible. And if you don't contradict yourself on a regular basis, then you're not thinking.Collection: Responsibility
It takes ten thousand hours to truly master anything. Time spent leads to experience; experience leads to proficiency; and the more proficient you are the more valuable you'll be.Collection: Hours
Success has to do with deliberate practice. Practice must be focused, determined, and in an environment where there's feedback.Collection: Practice
If you don't contradict yourself on a regular basis, then you're not thinking.Collection: Thinking