Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Malcolm Gladwell
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: September 3
Journalist
Screenwriter
Sociologist
Writer
Malcolm Timothy Gladwell
Mother
Model
Impenetrable
Else
Curious
Superfluous
Someone
Simplicity
Valued
Wells
Models
Irrelevant
Everything
Reader
Thoughtful
Well
Writer
Clarity
Writing
Understand
Failed
Always
Doesn
Finds

More quotes by Malcolm Gladwell

Image
Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else's head.
Malcolm Gladwell
Image
Policy is driven by more than politics, however. It is equally driven by ideas.
Malcolm Gladwell
Image
There’s this powerful phrase in the legal world, “Difficult cases make bad law.” The exception is the difficult case. You can’t generalize them by definition. So although they are fascinating, they don’t solve any problem because they’re so one of a kind.
Malcolm Gladwell
Image
The poorer children were, to her mind, often better behaved, less whiny, more creative in making use of their own time, and have a well-developed sense of independence.
Malcolm Gladwell
Image
The kinds of errors that cause plane crashes are invariably errors of teamwork and communication.
Malcolm Gladwell
Image
If you think advantage lies in resources, then you think the best educational system is the one that spends the most money.
Malcolm Gladwell
Image
We have, as human beings, a storytelling problem. We're a bit too quick to come up with explanations for things we don't really have an explanation for.
Malcolm Gladwell
Image
What track needs to figure out: how to engage us between the races. Instead, the entire off-the-track conversation is about doping. This is how you kill a sport.
Malcolm Gladwell
Image
Of the great entrepreneurs of this era, people will have forgotten Steve Jobs.
Malcolm Gladwell
Image
Flom had the same experience...He didn't triumph over adversity. Instead, what started out as adversity ended up being an opportunity.
Malcolm Gladwell
Image
The difference isn't resources, it's attitude.
Malcolm Gladwell
Image
Incompetence annoys me. Overconfidence terrifies me.
Malcolm Gladwell
Image
When it's easy to make money, you have no incentive to think about development of talent.
Malcolm Gladwell
Image
We need to look at the subtle, the hidden, and the unspoken.
Malcolm Gladwell
Image
The goal of storytelling should be to make stories as ubiquitous as music.
Malcolm Gladwell
Image
I think actually the marketing community is approaching a crisis: There are just too many messages competing for too little attention. That is the fundamental problem.
Malcolm Gladwell
Image
Giants are not what we think they are. The same qualities that appear to give them strength are often the sources of great weakness.
Malcolm Gladwell
Image
We learn by example and by direct experience because there are real limits to the adequacy of verbal instruction.
Malcolm Gladwell
Image
Trump is an innovator who has shown how out of step the political establishment was. Which I think, probably, in the long term will be healthy. We have to figure out how to reinvigorate our political institutions and he's demonstrating to us the urgency of that task.
Malcolm Gladwell
Image
Asian culture has a profoundly different relationship to work. It rewards people who are persistent.
Malcolm Gladwell