Introversion - along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, and shyness - is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology.

Introversion- along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, and shyness- is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology. Introverts living in the Extrovert Ideal are like women in a man's world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are. Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but we've turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform.

Open-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They’re associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure.

Though shyness per se was unacceptable, reserve was a mark of good breeding.

I'm insatiably curious about human nature.

Do you really believe in what you said or wrote – in the thing that’s bringing criticism? And if I do believe it, I can withstand anything.

When you go to a football game and someone offers you a beer [...], they're really saying hi, have a glass of extroversion.