Malcolm Gladwell

We used to say poor people had lousy genes. Then we decided that wasn't OK, but we transferred the prejudice to upbringing. We said, 'You were neglected as a child, so you'll never make it.' That's just as pernicious.

People assume when my hair is long that I am a lot cooler than I actually am. I am not opposed to this misconception, by the way, but it is a misconception.

The answer is that we are not helpless in the face of our first impressions. They may bubble up from the unconscious - from behind a locked door inside of our brain - but just because something is outside of awareness doesn't mean it's outside of control.

Shallow communities are relatively easy to build.

We should be firing bad teachers.

If you take away the gift of reading, you create the gift of listening.

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.

It's very hard to find someone who's successful and dislikes what they do.

I'm just trying to say that it should reassure us that the inevitable traumas of being human do end up producing some good. Otherwise, the human condition is overwhelmingly depressing.

You think it matters to the kids whether they're learning to play on a Steinway or a normal piano?

The willingness to be self-critical in England is much greater than the willingness to be self-critical in America.

We can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't.

A radical and transformative thought goes nowhere without the willingness to challenge convention.

Change your mind about something significant every day.

People who bring transformative change have courage, know how to re-frame the problem and have a sense of urgency.

Nobody accomplishes success by themselves.

The answer is that the success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts.

There is more going on beneath the surface than we think, and more going on in little, finite moments of time than we would guess.

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.

There will be statues of Bill Gates across the Third World. There's a reasonable shot that - because of his money - we will cure malaria.

The great accomplishment of Jobs's life is how effectively he put his idiosyncrasies - his petulance, his narcissism, and his rudeness - in the service of perfection.