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3d72405
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Why did you attack some girl's boots?" J.Lo looked incredulous. "She is still mad about this?" he huffed. "I TOLD her-I THOUGHT they were ANKLEwolves." "Okay, whatever. I-" "Why elsenow would a person wear fur with shortpants? It makes no sense!"
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Adam Rex |
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0193a3d
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My partner and I are going to be run over by a rabbit driving a Citroen" just isn't the sort of thing that occurs to most people, no matter what kind of life they've led."
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Adam Rex |
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1a83412
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She had her shoes on now, and a diaper bag slung over one shoulder. In the opposite arm she cradled Andromeda, who was wearing both her Legolas Onesie and her Keebler booties. Which seemed wrong, you know--mixing two different kinds of elves like that. So now I knew Vicki was crazy.
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Adam Rex |
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f0d7ecb
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Control was the basis of all humor. Even at its most innocent, what was a joke or a clever comment if not a way to take control? To become King of the Moment.
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Adam Rex |
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9f278b2
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There's a little bit of magic in every box!
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funny
magic
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Adam Rex |
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1756583
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When we wants to do something but cannot, that is when we think. When our consciousness awakes up and stretches its arms. That is when we imagine, and plan, and dream about the undone thing.
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Adam Rex |
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63682d1
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There is, I believe now, a force in stories, words in motion, that either drives them forward past things into feelings or doesn't. Sometimes the words fly over the fence and all the way out to the feelings.
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stories
words
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Adam Gopnik |
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0631766
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Oliver, success is usually a feeling of mere relief, where failure is pain. Happiness, you see, lies in neither, but in sticking to a daily ritual and becoming absorbed in something useful. When the war is over, even the greatest warriors do not exult. They go back to their garden or kitchen or library -- or school -- and resume life. (as said by Mrs. Pearson)
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philosophical
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Adam Gopnik |
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b05526b
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We pursued the muses, instead of the mirrors.
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Adam Gopnik |
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6f93419
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Whenever I am feeling blue, I like to go to the Balzar and watch a waiter gravely transfer a steak au poivre and its accompaniments from an oval platter to a plate, item by item. It reaffirms my faith in the sanity of superfluous civilization.
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Adam Gopnik |
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0df8cb1
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that people don't speak in theories, that the theories they employ change, flexibly, and of necessity, from moment to moment in conversation, that the notion of limiting conversation to a rigid rule of theoretical constancy is an absurd denial of what conversation is.
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Adam Gopnik |
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2206968
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There was a nook in the house that contained what they called the Turkish Room, which was for intimate conversation. And when my mother had her sixth birthday, her grandmother led her into the Turkish Room. They were both named Inez. And on that day Big Inez gave Little Inez a plantation all her own. Two thousand acres. Then her little sister came running in and said, "Grandmother, can I have a plantation too?" And Big Inez looked down and ..
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Adam Gopnik |
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b239f47
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I read a lot of travel books before I came here. Fantasised what it would be like. I read Scott's journal. Those last entries as they froze to death in that tent. 'Had we lived, I should have made a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman.' I got totally caught up in the romance." "Scott was a self-aggrandising dick."
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Adam Baker |
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ff26f02
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The customer service agents who accepted the defaults of Internet Explorer and Safari approached their job the same way. They stayed on script in sales calls and followed standard operating procedures for handling customer complaints. They saw their job descriptions as fixed, so when they were unhappy with their work, they started missing days, and eventually just quit. The employees who took the initiative to change their browsers to Firef..
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Adam M. Grant |
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242b795
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This chapter is about when to speak up and how to do it effectively without jeopardizing our careers and relationships. What
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Adam M. Grant |
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68c0899
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But there's something distinctive that happens when givers succeed: it spreads and cascades.
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Adam M. Grant |
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cd9669a
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If we want people to accept our original ideas, we need to speak up about them, then rinse and repeat. To
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Adam M. Grant |
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f6b4092
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The mere exposure effect has been replicated many times--the more familiar a face, letter, number, sound, flavor, brand, or Chinese character becomes, the more we like it. It's
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Adam M. Grant |
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1b05edf
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Reasoning does create a paradox: it leads both to more rule following and more rebelliousness. By
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Adam M. Grant |
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bcd5df8
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Research shows that takers harbor doubts about others' intentions, so they monitor vigilantly for information that others might harm them, treating others with suspicion and distrust. These low expectations trigger a vicious cycle, constraining the development and motivation of others. Even when takers are impressed by another person's capabilities or motivation, they're more likely to see this person as a threat, which means they're less w..
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Adam M. Grant |
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f95519b
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Three decades of research show that receiving support from colleagues is a robust antidote to burnout.
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Adam M. Grant |
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b16c2e3
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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw On a cool fall evening in 2008, four students set out to revolutionize an industry. Buried in loans, they had lost and broken eyeglasses and were outraged at how much it cost to replace them. One of them had been wearing the same damaged pair for f..
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Adam M. Grant |
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3e941dc
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As economist Joseph Schumpeter famously observed, originality is an act of creative destruction. Advocating for new systems often requires demolishing the old way of doing things, and we hold back for fear of rocking the boat.
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Adam M. Grant |
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5cacd03
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Based on David Hornik's story, you might predict that givers achieve the worst results--and you'd be right. Research demonstrates that givers sink to the bottom of the success ladder. Across a wide range of important occupations, givers are at a disadvantage: they make others better off but sacrifice their own success in the process.
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Adam M. Grant |
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07240f8
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Although many successful givers start from the default of trusting others' intentions, they're also careful to scan their environments to screen for potential takers, always ready to shift from feeling a taker's emotions to analyzing a taker's thoughts, and flex from giving unconditionally to a more measured approach of generous tit for tat. And when they feel inclined to back down, successful givers are prepared to draw reserves of asserti..
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Adam M. Grant |
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0aeee72
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Now that you have a bit of respect, you value your standing in the group and don't want to jeopardize it. To maintain and then gain status, you play a game of follow-the-leader, conforming to prove your worth as a group member. As
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Adam M. Grant |
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baf62bb
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Being a giver is not good for a 100-yard dash, but it's valuable in a marathon
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Adam M. Grant |
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7967ffd
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a young Goldman Sachs banker named Joseph Park was sitting in his apartment, frustrated at the effort required to get access to entertainment. Why should he trek all the way to Blockbuster to rent a movie? He should just be able to open a website, pick out a movie, and have it delivered to his door. Despite raising around $250 million, Kozmo, the company Park founded, went bankrupt in 2001. His biggest mistake was making a brash promise for..
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Adam M. Grant |
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af2534b
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In 1927, Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik demonstrated that people have a better memory for incomplete than complete tasks. Once a task is finished, we stop thinking about it. But when it is interrupted and left undone, it stays active in our minds. As
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Adam M. Grant |
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8fb0036
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And in the long run, research shows that the mistakes we regret are not errors of commission, but errors of omission. If we could do things over, most of us would censor ourselves less and express our ideas more. That's
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Adam M. Grant |
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f39457c
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Along with providing time to generate novel ideas, procrastination has another benefit: it keeps us open to improvisation. When we plan well in advance, we often stick to the structure we've created, closing the door to creative possibilities that might spring into our fields of vision. Years
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Adam M. Grant |
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0b9db4c
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We assume that common goals bind groups together, but the reality is that they often drive groups apart. According to Dartmouth psychologist Judith White, a lens for understanding these fractures is the concept of horizontal hostility. Even though they share a fundamental objective, radical groups often disparage more mainstream groups as impostors and sellouts.
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Adam M. Grant |
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caddefb
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Taking is using other people solely for one's own gain. Receiving is accepting help from others while maintaining a willingness to pay it back and forward.
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Adam M. Grant |
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57e18c3
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This is the core challenge of speaking up with an original idea. When you present a new suggestion, you're not only hearing the tune in your head. You wrote the song. You've spent hours, days, weeks, months, or maybe even years thinking about the idea. You've contemplated the problem, formulated the solution, and rehearsed the vision. You know the lyrics and the melody of your idea by heart. By that point, it's no longer possible to imagine..
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Adam M. Grant |
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3702d33
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If you want a child to share a toy, instead of asking, "Will you share?" ask, "Will you be a sharer?"
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Adam M. Grant |
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dce0d29
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In a recent study comparing every Nobel Prize-winning scientist from 1901 to 2005 with typical scientists of the same era, both groups attained deep expertise in their respective fields of study. But the Nobel Prize winners were dramatically more likely to be involved in the arts than less accomplished scientists. Here's
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Adam M. Grant |
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7e6fd27
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The more experiments you run, the less constrained you become by your ideas from the past. You
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Adam M. Grant |
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a35de98
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givers always score high on other-interest, but they vary in self-interest. There are two types of givers, and they have dramatically different success rates. Selfless givers are people with high other-interest and low self-interest. They give their time and energy without regard for their own needs, and they pay a price for it. Selfless giving is a form of pathological altruism, which is defined by researcher Barbara Oakley as "an unhealth..
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Adam M. Grant |
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07be2ea
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Strong ties provide bonds, but weak ties serve as bridges: they provide more efficient access to new information. Our strong ties tend to travel in the same social circles and know about the same opportunities as we do. Weak ties are more likely to open up access to a different network, facilitating the discovery of original leads.
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Adam M. Grant |
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b462247
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All it took was having them spend their initial six minutes a little differently: instead of adopting a managerial mindset for evaluating ideas, they got into a creative mindset by generating ideas themselves. Just
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Adam M. Grant |
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3744ba1
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Some people, when they do someone a favor, are always looking for a chance to call it in. And some aren't, but they're still aware of it--still regard it as a debt. But others don't even do that. They're like a vine that produces grapes without looking for anything in return... after helping others... They just go on to something else... We should be like that. --Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor
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Adam M. Grant |
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b8f5c5c
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We are not our brother's keeper . . . in countless large and small ways we are our brother's maker." Harry and Bonaro Overstreet"
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Adam M. Grant |
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167079e
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Even with a receptive audience, dominance is a zero-sum game: the more power and authority I have, the less you have.
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Adam M. Grant |
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68de7bd
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But there's a twist: expressing vulnerability is only effective if the audience receives other signals establishing the speaker's competence.
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Adam M. Grant |