No individual can be in full control of his fate-our strengths come significantly from our history, our experiences largely from the vagaries of chance. But by seizing the opportunity to leverage and frame these experiences, we gain agency over them. And this heightened agency, in turn, places us in a stronger position to deal with future experiences, even as it may alter our own sense of strengths and possibilities.

I believe that the brain has evolved over millions of years to be responsive to different kinds of content in the world. Language content, musical content, spatial content, numerical content, etc.

My belief in why America has been doing so well up to now is that we have been propelled by our immigrants and our encouragement of technical innovation and, indeed, creativity across the board.

Emile Zola was a poor student at his school at Aix. We are all so different largely because we all have different combinations of intelligences. If we recognize this, I think we will have at least a better chance of dealing appropriately with many problems that we face in the world.

'Til 1983, I wrote primarily for other psychologists and expected that they would be the principal audience for my book.

It may well be easier to remember a list if one sings it (or dances to it). However, these uses of the 'materials' of an intelligence are essentially trivial. What is not trivial is the capacity to think musically.

An intelligence is the biological and psychological potential to analyze information in specific ways, in order to solve problems or to create products that are valued in a culture.