Solitude is one of our great superpowers... Solitude is the key to being able to make effective decisions and then having the courage of convictions to stand behind those decisions.

Opposites attract, and I think temperament is so fundamental that you end up craving someone of the opposite temperament to complete you.

What looks like multitasking is really switching back and forth between multiple tasks, which reduces productivity and increases mistakes by up to 50 percent.

Solitude matters. And for some people it's the air they breathe.

There's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.

we have two ears and one mouth and we should use them proportionally

You're told that you're in your head too much, a phrase that's often deployed against the quiet and cerebral. Or maybe there's another word for such people: thinkers.

Introverts are capable of acting like extroverts for the sake of work they consider important, people they love, or anything they value highly.

It's as if they have thinner boundaries separating them from other people's emotions and from the tragedies and cruelties of the world.

I'm continually amazed by how many people who appear to be extroverts are actually introverts.

Cross the street to avoid making aimless chitchat with random acquaintances.

We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.

It seems when Opportunity knocks, Fate shows up to open the door.

The only thing to know is how to use your neuroses.

You can't have a decent food culture without a decent coffee culture: the two things grow up together.

Nonsense is to sense, as shade to light; it heightens effect.

I wish we could go back to the time when the private lives of our public figures were relevant only if they directly affected their public responsibilities.

Ask any athlete: We all hurt at times. I'm asking my body to go through seven different tasks. To ask it not to ache would be too much.

Ritual is important to us as human beings. It ties us to our traditions and our histories.

Little islands are all large prisons: one cannot look at the sea without wishing for the wings of a swallow.

You don't filter smokestacks or water. Instead, you put the filter in your head and design the problem out of existence.