We really are living in an age of information overload. Google estimates that there are 300 exabytes (300 followed by 18 zeros) of human-made information in the world today. Only four years ago there were just 30 exabytes. We've created more information in the past few years than in all of human history before us.

You'd think people would realize they're bad at multitasking and would quit. But a cognitive illusion sets in, fueled in part by a dopamine-adrenaline feedback loop, in which multitaskers think they are doing great.

Although I don't know Paul McCartney, a mutual friend told me that Paul was reading my book, This Is Your Brain on Music, and stopped after chapter two. McCartney said he was concerned that if he learned more about how he does what he does (as far as composing music), he may not be able to do it anymore!

Ten thousand hours is equivalent to roughly three hours a day, or 20 hours a week, of practice over 10 years... No one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.

Librarians are more important than ever before ... are uniquely qualified to help all of us separate the digital wheat from the chaff, to help us understand the reliability of the data we encounter.

The amount of scientific information we've discovered in the last twenty years is more than all the discoveries up to that point, from the beginning of language.

Most of what we know we don't really know first hand. I've never seen a cancer cell. But I trust this community of experts who have, so I believe that cancer exists. But we trust these experts, and we trust that the experts have a system of checks and balances and self-correction. And we have to insist that experts have certain certifications. They're not perfect. Every once in awhile there's an engine falls off the wing of a plane, or a tax audit happens and you find out your expert made a mistake. But it's a pretty good system. It's the best system we've got.