Susan Cain: Inner Landscapes

“It can be hard for extroverts to understand how badly introverts need to recharge at the end of a busy day. We all empathize with a sleep-deprived mate who comes home from work too tired to talk, but it’s harder to grasp that social overstimulation can be just as exhausting.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Our culture made a virtue of living only as extroverts. We discouraged the inner journey, the quest for a center. So we lost our center and have to find it again.
—ANAÏS NIN”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“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

“Introverts need to trust their gut and share their ideas as powerfully as they can.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Introverts prefer to work independently, and solitude can be a catalyst to innovation.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Introverts feel “just right” with less stimulation, as when they sip wine with a close friend, solve a crossword puzzle, or read a book. Extroverts enjoy the extra bang that comes from activities like meeting new people, skiing slippery slopes, and cranking up the stereo.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“...If you can think of meetings you've attended, you can probably recall a time - plenty of times - when the opinion of the most dynamic or talkative person prevailed to the detriment of all.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Use your natural powers—of persistence, concentration, insight, and sensitivity—to do work you love and work that matters. Solve problems, make art, think deeply.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“We live with a value system that I call the Extrovert Ideal—the omnipresent belief that the ideal self is gregarious, alpha, and comfortable in the spotlight.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“If personal space is vital to creativity, so is freedom from "peer pressure".”
― 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. Some people are like extroverts, but the effort costs them in energy, authenticity, and even physical health. Others seem aloof or self-contained, but their inner landscapes are rich and full of drama.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Introverts are offered keys to private gardens full of riches. To possess such a key is to tumble like Alice down her rabbit hole. She didn't choose to go to Wonderland - but she made of it an adventure that was fresh and fantastic and very much her own.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Respect for individual human personality has with us reached its lowest point," observed one intellectual in 1921, "and it is delightfully ironical that no nation is so constantly talking about personality as we are. We actually have schools for 'self-expression' and 'self-development,' although we seem usually to mean the expression and development of a successful real estate agent.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“So when introverts assume the observer role, as when they write novels, or contemplate unified field theory- or fall quiet at dinner parties- they’re not demonstrating a failure or a lack of energy. They’re simply doing what they’re constitutionally suited for” (237).”
― 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.
- Steve 'Woz' Wozniak.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Who could be happy in a world of podiums and microphones?”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“By the time I was old enough to figure out that I was simply introverted, it was a part of my being, the assumption that there is something inherently wrong with me. I wish I could find that little vestige of doubt and remove it.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“I have found that there are three key steps to identifying your own core personal projects.
First, 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. If you wanted to be a fireman, what did a fireman mean to you? A good man who rescued people in distress? A daredevil? Or the simple pleasure of operating a truck? If you wanted to be a dancer, was it because you got to wear a costume, or because you craved applause, or was it the pure joy of twirling around at lightning speed? You may have known more about who you were then than you do now.
Second, pay attention to the work you gravitate to. At my law firm I never once volunteered to take on an extra corporate legal assignment, but I did spend a lot of time doing pro bono work for a nonprofit women’s leadership organization. I also sat on several law firm committees dedicated to mentoring, training, and personal development for young lawyers in the firm. Now, as you can probably tell from this book, I am not the committee type. But the goals of those committees lit me up, so that’s what I did.
Finally, pay attention to what you envy. Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“The trick for introverts is to honor their styles instead of allowing themselves to be swept up by prevailing norms.”
― 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. . . .

Once you understand introversion and extroversion as preferences for certain levels of stimulation, you can begin consciously trying to situate yourself in environments favorable to your own personality--neither overstimulating nor understimulating, neither boring nor anxiety-making. You can organize your life in terms of what personality psychologists call "optimal levels of arousal" and what I call "sweet spots," and by doing so feel more energetic and alive than before.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“I need a break after school," she told me later. "School is hard because a lot of people are in the room, so you get tired. I freak out if my mom plans a play date without telling me, because I don't want to hurt my friends' feelings. But I'd rather stay home. At a friend's house you have to do the things other people want to do. I like hanging out with my mom after school because I can learn from her. She's been alive longer than me. We have thoughtful conversations. I like having conversations because they make people happy.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“It's not always so easy, it turns out, to identify your core personal projects. And it can be especially tough for introverts, who have spent so much of their lives conforming to extroverted norms that by the time they choose a career, or a calling, it feels perfectly normal to ignore their own preferences. They may be uncomfortable in law school or nursing school or in the marketing department, but no more so than they were back in middle school or summer camp.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“...The simple act of being interrupted is one of the biggest barriers to productivity...What looks like multitasking is really switching back and forth between multiple tasks, which reduces productivity and increases mistakes by up to 50 percent.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“I am a horse for a single harness, not cut out for tandem or teamwork … for well I know that in order to attain any definite goal, it is imperative that one person do the thinking and the commanding.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“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, by our brains, by our nervous systems. And yet the elasticity that Schwartz found in some of the high-reactive teens also suggests the converse: we have free will and can use it to shape our personalities.
These seem like contradictory principles, but they are not. Free will can take us far, suggests Dr. Schwartz’s research, but it cannot carry us infinitely beyond our genetic limits. Bill Gates is never going to be Bill Clinton, no matter how he polishes his social skills, and Bill Clinton can never be Bill Gates, no matter how much time he spends alone with a computer.
We might call this the “rubber band theory” of personality. We are like rubber bands at rest. We are elastic and can stretch ourselves, but only so much.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Don’t mistake assertiveness or eloquence for good ideas.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“In her book Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion, Carol Tavris recounts a story about a Bengali cobra that liked to bite passing villagers. One day a swami—a man who has achieved self-mastery—convinces the snake that biting is wrong. The cobra vows to stop immediately, and does. Before long, the village boys grow unafraid of the snake and start to abuse him. Battered and bloodied, the snake complains to the swami that this is what came of keeping his promise.
“I told you not to bite,” said the swami, “but I did not tell you not to hiss.”
“Many people, like the swami’s cobra, confuse the hiss with the bite,” writes Tavris.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking