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It wasn't an excuse. It was a fact. He'd had to make his way alone, and no one - not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses - ever makes it alone.

Malcolm Gladwell

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Malcolm Gladwell
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: September 3
Journalist
Screenwriter
Sociologist
Writer
Malcolm Timothy Gladwell
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Software
Stars
Professional
Fact
Athlete
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More quotes by Malcolm Gladwell

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The religious paradigm and the science fiction paradigm are different. Apologies to science fiction fans, but the paradigm there is to create a new world and describe it with a kind of specificity that we describe the world we inhabit. Religiosity, on the other hand, does none of that.
Malcolm Gladwell
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My writing model is my mother, who is a writer as well. She always valued clarity and simplicity above all else. If someone doesn't understand what you're writing, then everything else you do is superfluous. Irrelevant. If any thoughtful, curious reader finds what I do impenetrable, I've failed.
Malcolm Gladwell
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The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter.
Malcolm Gladwell
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Track is full of the absolute nicest and most polite athletes in all of sports, and where does it get us?
Malcolm Gladwell
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The conventional wisdom is often wrong. Crime didn't keep soaring in the 1990s, money alone doesn't win elections, and - surprise - drinking eight glasses of water a day has never actually been shown to do a thing for your health. Conventional wisdom is often shoddily formed and devilishly difficult to see through, but it can be done.
Malcolm Gladwell
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It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success.
Malcolm Gladwell
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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.
Malcolm Gladwell
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It's very hard to find someone who's successful and dislikes what they do.
Malcolm Gladwell
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What interests me about fiction is plot. And what interests me about plot is whether someone tells a story that moves me within the constraints of storytelling. And I have narrowly defined storytelling.
Malcolm Gladwell
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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.
Malcolm Gladwell
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Instinct is the gift of experience. The first question you have to ask yourself is, 'On what basis am I making a judgment?' ... If you have no experience, then your instincts aren't any good.
Malcolm Gladwell
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Does that mean we should give up? Probably. But there are two issues worth considering. The first is - is it really true that drugs destroy the integrity of the game?
Malcolm Gladwell
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A book, I was taught long ago in English class, is a living and breathing document that grows richer with each new reading.
Malcolm Gladwell
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People who bring transformative change have courage, know how to re-frame the problem and have a sense of urgency.
Malcolm Gladwell
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If you want to bring a fundamental change in people's belief and behavior...you need to create a community around them, where those new beliefs can be practiced and expressed and nurtured.
Malcolm Gladwell
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If we think about emotion this way - as outside-in, not inside out - it is possible to understand how some people can have an enormous amount of influence over others. Some of us, after all, are very good at expressiing emotions and feelings, which means that we are far more emotionally contagious than the rest of us.
Malcolm Gladwell
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The injunction to be nice is used to deflect criticism and stifle the legitimate anger of dissent.
Malcolm Gladwell
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If you don't contradict yourself on a regular basis, then you're not thinking.
Malcolm Gladwell
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Bad improvisers block action, often with a high degree of skill. Good improvisers develop action.
Malcolm Gladwell
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If you think advantage lies in resources, then you think the best educational system is the one that spends the most money.
Malcolm Gladwell