Susan Cain
Susan Cain
Susan Horowitz Cainis an American writer and lecturer, and author of the 2012 non-fiction book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, which argues that modern Western culture misunderstands and undervalues the traits and capabilities of introverted people. In 2015, Cain co-founded Quiet Revolution, a mission-based company with initiatives in the areas of children, lifestyle, and the workplace. Cain's 2016 follow-on book, Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts, focused on introverted children and teens,...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
CountryUnited States of America
I'm insatiably curious about human nature.
When you go to a football game and someone offers you a beer [...], they're really saying hi, have a glass of extroversion.
Naked lions are just as dangerous as elegantly dressed ones
Your tendency to be inward-directed or outward-directed is huge; it governs every part of the way you live and work and love.
It's never a good idea to organize society in a way that depletes the energy of half the population.
If you enjoy depth, don't force yourself to seek breadth. If you prefer single-tasking to multi-tasking, stick to your guns.
Do you really believe in what you said or wrote – in the thing that’s bringing criticism? And if I do believe it, I can withstand anything.
Cross the street to avoid making aimless chitchat with random acquaintances.
Women were also urged to work on a mysterious quality called 'fascination.' Coming of age in the 1920's was a competitive business...
In a way, education by its nature favours the extrovert because you are taking kids and putting them into a big classroom, which is automatically going to be a high-stimulation environment. Probably the best way of teaching in general is one on one, but that's not something everyone can afford.
But when the group is literally capable of changing our perceptions, and when to stand alone is to activate primitive, powerful, and unconscious feelings of rejection, then the health of these institutions seems far more vulnerable than we think.
Schwartz's research suggests something important: we can stretch our personalities, but only up to a point. Our inborn temperaments influence us, regardless of the lives we lead. A sizeable 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.
It's not that there is no small talk...It's that it comes not at the beginning of conversations but at the end...Sensitive people...'enjoy small talk only after they've gone deep' says Strickland. 'When sensitive people are in environments that nurture their authenticity, they laugh and chitchat just as much as anyone else.
I had always imagined Rosa Parks as a stately woman with a bold temperament, someone who could easily stand up to a busload of glowering passengers. But when she died in 2005 at the age of ninety-two, the flood of obituaries recalled her as soft-spoken, sweet, and small in stature. They said she was "timid and shy" but had "the courage of a lion." They were full of phrases like "radical humility" and "quiet fortitude.