“Sometimes [genius] is just the thing that emerges after twenty years of working at your kitchen table.” YearsSometimesGeniusTwentiesTablesKitchenKitchen Table Author:Malcolm Gladwell
“People at CDC [Centers for Disease Control] who cut their teeth on diseases over the last 10 years have started to think of crime as another disease, and using some of these same concepts. It was something that was in the air in that world, but it was time to bust it out and apply it to any number of different social epidemics.” PeopleThinkingWorldYearsDifferentLastsSocialNumbersCuttingAirCrimeDiseaseConceptsTeethEpidemics Author:Malcolm Gladwell
“The 10,000-hours rule says that if you look at any kind of cognitively complex field, from playing chess to being a neurosurgeon, we see this incredibly consistent pattern that you cannot be good at that unless you practice for 10,000 hours, which is roughly ten years, if you think about four hours a day.” IfsThinkingYearsLooksKindHoursPracticeFourFieldsTenComplexesPatternsBe GoodChessConsistentPlaying ChessNeurosurgeons Author:Malcolm Gladwell
“Take a random group of 8-year-old American and Japanese kids, give them all a really, really hard math problem, and start a stopwatch. The American kids will give up after 30, 40 seconds. If you let the test run for 15 minutes, the Japanese kids will not have given up. You have to take it away.” IfsGivingYearsHardProblemRunningKidsGivenGroupsMinutesGiving UpTestsMathSecondsGiven UpMath Problems Author:Malcolm Gladwell
“I recently talked to an eighteen-year-old - a huge FIFA fan - and realized that he spends more time playing the FIFA video game than he does watching actual FIFA games.” YearsDoeGamesFansHugeVideoMore TimeEighteenFifaEighteen Years Old Author:Malcolm Gladwell
“David Epstein, the author of the best book on athletics in recent memory - "The Sports Gene" - wrote to me to say that he thinks I'm being overly generous. He points out that, for years, there used to be an "all-star challenge" on television, in which the best professional athletes from a variety of sports competed in a kind of makeshift decathlon.” ThinkingYearsKindBookUsedStarsSportsChallengesMemoriesTelevisionAthleteUsed To BeVarietyGenerousGenesAthleticsProfessional AthleteAll StarsDecathlon Author:Malcolm Gladwell
“I write my books to challenge my own feelings and theories. Perhaps most surprising was what I learned about rice farming. It was really interesting to think of how different Asian and Western cultures are as a result of the kinds of agricultural practices that our ancestors used for thousands of years. The life of a Chinese peasant in the Middle Ages was so dramatically different from the life of a European peasant - night and day different.” ThinkingWritingYearsKindBookDifferentFeelingsAgeUsedNightCultureChallengesMy OwnInterestingResultsPracticeMiddleTheoryWesternChineseAncestorSurprisingAsianFarmingMiddle AgesRicePeasantsReally InterestingWestern Culture Author:Malcolm Gladwell
“My highest compliment is when someone comes up to me to say, "My 14-year-old daughter, or my 12-year-old son read your book and loved it." I cannot conceive of a greater compliment than that - to write something that as an adult I find satisfying, but also that manages to reach a curious 13- or 14-year-old.” WritingYearsBookGreaterSonHighestDaughterAdultsCome UpManageCuriousComplimentSatisfying Author:Malcolm Gladwell
“There's no idea that can't be explained to a thoughtful 14-year-old. If the thoughtful 14-year-old doesn't get it, it is your fault, not the 14-year-old's.” IfsYearsIdeasFaultsNo IdeaThoughtful Author:Malcolm Gladwell
“It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success. It’s the rich who get the biggest tax breaks. It’s the best students who get the best teaching and most attention. And it’s the biggest nine- and ten-year-olds who get the most coaching and practice. Success is the result of what sociologists like to call “accumulative advantage.” YearsKindOpportunityGivenResultsAttentionBreakPracticeSuccessfulRichTeachingSpecialStudentsTenTaxesAdvantageNineCoachingTax BreaksSociologistsOutliersBest StudentsBest Teaching Author:Malcolm Gladwell
“The lesson here is very simple. But it is striking how often it is overlooked. We are so caught in the myths of the best and the brightest and the self-made that we think outliers spring naturally from the earth. We look at the young Bill Gates and marvel that our world allowed that thirteen-year-old to become a fabulously successful entrepreneur. But that's the wrong lesson. Our world only allowed one thirteen-year-old unlimited access to a time sharing terminal in 1968. If a million teenagers had been given the same opportunity, how many more Microsofts would we have today?” IfsThinkingWorldYearsLooksMadeSelfTodayEarthSuccessYoungOpportunityGivenSimpleMillionsSuccessfulLessonsSpringBillsEntrepreneurCaughtMythAccessTeenagerGatesOur WorldUnlimitedMicrosoftThirteenOverlookedSelf MadeSuccessful EntrepreneursTerminalOutliersThirteen Year Olds Author:Malcolm Gladwell
“Re-reading is much underrated. I've read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold once every five years since I was 15. I only started to understand it the third time.” YearsReadingFiveColdThirdsFive YearsSpyUnderratedThird Time Author:Malcolm Gladwell
“No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich.” YearsSuccessThreeBusinessRichFailingHundredDawnSixtyOutliers Author:Malcolm Gladwell
“To become a chess grandmaster also seems to take about ten years. (Only the legendary Bobby Fisher got to that elite level in less than that amount of time: it took him nine years.) And what's ten years? Well, it's roughly how long it takes to put in ten thousand hours of hard practice. Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.” YearsWellsLongHardSeemsHoursLevelsNumbersPracticeMagicGreatnessAmountThousandTenChessNineElitesLegendaryNine Years Author:Malcolm Gladwell
“It is quite possible for people who have never met us and who have spent only twenty minutes thinking about us to come to a better understanding of who we are than people who have known us for years.” PeopleThinkingYearsUnderstandingKnownMinutesMetsTwentiesWho We Are Author:Malcolm Gladwell
