Malcolm Gladwell Quotes
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The two contemporary writers whom I consider as role models are Janet Malcolm and Michael Lewis.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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As a writer, the best mindset is to be unafraid.
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When you write about sports, you're allowed to engage in mischief. Nothing is at stake.
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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.
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In the government's eyes, the Branch Davidians were a threat.
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If you're skinny and you can't play hockey in Canada, you aren't left with a lot of options. I was left with running.
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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.
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There is this tremendous body of knowledge in the world of academia where extraordinary numbers of incredibly thoughtful people have taken the time to examine on a really profound level the way we live our lives and who we are and where we've been. That brilliant learning sometimes gets trapped in academia and never sees the light of day.
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We should be firing bad teachers.
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We aren't, as human beings, very good at acting in our best interest.
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Age-class running, as you know, is completely unreliable. It's based on this artificial thing, which is that people who are the same age have the same level of physical maturity. Which just isn't true.
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An aggressive drug-testing program would cut down on certain abuses, but its never going to catch everyone - or even close to everyone.
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My mother read me biblical stories at night.
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So, it's a very, you know - maybe we're wrong in - you know, we go around thinking the innovator is the person who's first to kind of conceive of something. And maybe the innovation process continues down the line to the second and the third and the fourth entrant into a field.
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If you make a great number of predictions, the ones that were wrong will soon be forgotten, and the ones that turn out to be true will make you famous.
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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?
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It's very hard to find someone who's successful and dislikes what they do.
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You don't train someone for all of those years of medical school and residency, particularly people who want to help others optimize their physical and psychological health, and then have them run a claims-processing operation for insurance companies.