The public totally discounts low-probability high-consequence events. The individual says, it's not going to be this plane, this bus, this time..

People will help each other because there is a sense of camaraderie that springs up, which is a survival tactic. You help them because you know you m….

The one thread that was most surprising and most consistent was the lack of fear that people felt at the worst moment. They felt a lot of fear in ear….

The evil genius of terrorism is that that maximizes unfamiliarity, imaginability, suffering, scale of destruction, unfairness. It's really important ….

Most serious plane crashes are survivable. There's a sense that, 'Oh, if we go down, that's it, it's out of my hands.' And that's just statistically ….

We gauge risk literally hundreds of times per day, usually well and often subconsciously. We start assessing risk before the disaster even happens. W….

Most Korean parents saw themselves as coaches, while American parents tended to act more like cheerleaders..

Women are far more likely to follow orders to evacuate, especially women with children. At the same time, women were much more likely to die during t….

You could reduce people's fears if you gave them some useful information before things went wrong. It's really important to create a sense of confide….

We don't talk about that at all as a country. I think that most people assume that there's nothing they could do if a nuclear bomb went off in their ….

The health of your family or your office or your city directly affects the health of it after. The better you are at handling high-stress situations ….

Citizens are not prepared for attacks because there is a bias against the public by nearly every expert and government official. In emergency prepare….

I can't tell you how many times I've been with very smart, knowledgeable Homeland Security experts who are essentially tasked with saving your life w….

My anxiety about disasters is lower. The more you know, the less scary any of this stuff is. And that's my hope for the book. I want to get people's ….

A lot of the time you see a warning, in the subway, or in a movie theater, the main thrust of the warning will be to not panic if there is an emergen….

People help way more than we expect, way more than makes sense. But when you talk to people called heroes, they often say they did it for themselves.….

Women in particular seem to say things like, "I'm sure I'd be the one screaming and not moving in an emergency." I don't think that's the case. Peopl….

People with military experience seem to do very well in these situations. They've been taught that they can control their destiny, which is half the ….

Paralysis seems to happen on the steepest slope of the survival arc—where almost all hope is lost, when escape seems impossible, and when the situati….

By sort of combining the research of a lot of smart people, I came up with an equation for dread [dread=uncontrollability+unfamiliarity+imaginability….

Resilience is a precious skill. People who have it tend to also have three underlying advantages: a believe that they can influence life events; a te….