Our first impressions are generated by our experiences and our environment, which means that we can change our first impressions... by changing the experiences that comprise those impressions.

Incompetence is certainty in the absence of expertise. Overconfidence is certainty in the presence of expertise.

We overlook just how large a role we all play--and by 'we' I mean society--in determining who makes it and who doesn't.

We spend a lot of time and effort trying to figure out who's going to be a good NFL quarterback, and we do a very bad job of it. We don't really know. And we also spend a lot of time trying to figure out who will be a good teacher, and we're really bad at that too. We don't know if someone is going to be a good teacher when they start teaching. So what should we do in those situations in which predictions are useless?

I don't think people are averse to thinking about things in a deep way, but we have limited time and opportunity to think about things in a deep way. I think that's why there is an appetite for non-fiction - it gives people the opportunity to reexamine ordinary experience and be smarter about it.

There is nothing more common than critics of journalists accusing them of practicing journalism. It is our function in the world to take things that are complicated and render them in a form that non-experts can follow and make sense of.

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.