Top 41 Quotes & Sayings by Po Bronson

How often a mother initiates a conversation with her child is not predictive of the language outcomes - what matters is, if the infant initiates, whether the mom responds.

I think when a reader reads a whole book - which takes six to ten hours - that’s kind of a gift to the author. The gift of close, undivided attention. To who else do we listen so closely for eight straight hours? And when readers give that gift to me, I’m grateful for it.

I used to want to change the world. Now I'm open to letting it change me.

I can push myself and you can push yourself, but competing, we push ourselves a little farther and we bring out our best even if one of us wins and one of us loses. The virtue of competition is that we both get better, not that one does. And that means we have great respect for the opponents, whether we win or whether we lose.

We've all lost something along the way.

It surprises me how often we hold ourselves back until we have no choice.

Write first. Worry about getting an agent or publisher later. Write it first. Prove you can do it and then others will listen. Tons of people talk about books they want to write. Far fewer are those who actually complete that vision. Don’t be a talker.

Testosterone is the hormone of collaboration and competition that, whenever we compete on a team, we collaborate with our teammates. And most of us in our daily life, to the extent that we have to compete with the rat race in the world out there, we're collaborating with other people at the same time. The two are hand in hand.

We all make mistakes, but we need to learn from them and move on. You can own a mistake, or the mistake will own you.

Who you are is more important than what you do. The goal is to bring what you do in alignment with who you are, so you don’t end up being someone you don’t want to be.

The virtue of losing is we get used to the fact that competing and to lose doesn't kill you. It just makes you stronger. It just helps you get used to it.

Good competitive skills means not just to compete hard, but to selectively compete, to harness your energy for the things that matter and, in some cases, to just realize it doesn't matter whether I win or lose here at all.

You know, kids need to feel like they're not being drowned out by superior competitors and they'll make that connection that, with a little more effort, I can compete. I can be competitive. I can be successful here with a little more effort and application and they learn that themselves. It's not just us telling them how hard you work matters. They need to feel it on their own.

A surgeon might want to be the best surgeon in Manhattan, but out on Long Island on the weekend, not care at all how he is on the tennis courts or on the Ping-Pong table. Even turning your competitiveness off when it's appropriate, when other people are not being competitive, to recognize that social circumstance and, you know, cool it. That's a crucial competitive skill.

If you want to give yourself a fair chance to succeed, never expect too much too soon

I learned that it was in hard times that people usually changed the course of their life; in good times, they frequently only talked about change. Hard times forced them to overcome the doubts that normally gave them pause.It surprised me how often we hold ourselves back until we have no choice.

I used to use business to make money. But I've learned that business is a tool. You can use it to support what you believe in.

As I get older, I've learned to listen to people rather than accuse them of things.

Interests evolve into hobbies or volunteer work, which grow into passions. It takes time, more time than anyone imagines.

I'm convinced that business success in the future starts with the question, What should I do with my life? Yes, that's right.... People don't succeed by migrating to a "hot" industry (one word: dotcom) or by adopting a particular career-guiding mantra (remember "horizontal careers"?). They thrive by focusing on the question of who they really are--and connecting that to work that they truly love (and, in so doing, unleashing a productive and creative power that they never imagined).

Anytime you exhaust yourself trying to relax, that's active leisure.

The important thing to know about playing to win and playing not to lose is that there are actually different neural networks that are being used. It's not very easy to do both at the same time and, if you are trying to have a playing to win mentality, you're going for it, there's some things that trip you up or trigger the wrong neural network. If you start worrying about your mistakes all of a sudden, if you get too focused on the facts and the details, these are going to shift your neural networks and sort of screw up your strategy.

There's a powerful transformative effect when you surround yourself with like-minded people. Peer pressure is a great thing when it helps you accomplish your goals instead of distracting you from them.

Curiosity is a raw and genuine sign from deep inside our tangled psyches, and we'd do well to follow the direction it points us in.

Failure is hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you're successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever.

The tougher the times, the more clarity you gain about the difference between what really matters and what you only pretend to care about.

Obese kids watch no more television than kids who aren't obese. All the thin kids watch massive amounts of television, too. There is no statistical correlation between obesity and media use, period.

Women are very good at judging the risk and don't want to waste time with losing. So not that they're not as competitive, and certainly once they're in the race they're every bit as competitive, but they make that choice to compete in a more calculated way sensitive to the odds.

Success is not measured by bestseller lists. Certain types of great books sell very well; other types of great books don’t sell a lot. But they’re both great.

A piece of writing has to seduce the reader; it has to suspend disbelief and earn the reader's trust.

Books have been my classroom and my confidant. Books have widened my horizons. Books have comforted me in my hardest times. Books have changed my life.

Children key off their parents’ reaction more than the argument or physical discipline itself.

There was a culture that came out of the self-esteem movement which was don't anybody keep track of the goals. The kids keep track, but nobody keep track of the goals because we don't want the kids to have the experience of losing. And in depriving them losing, thinking it scarred them to lose, we made losing so taboo, so unspeakable, that we instead made losing more scary to kids, not less scary.

Love that has been tested is far more awe-inspiring than love that has never known anything but bliss.

Allow for many paths to your goal. Do not fixate on one path, because then you are likely to give up when that path is blocked.

But I'd rather help than watch. I'd rather have a heart than a mind. I'd rather expose too much than too little. I'd rather say hello to strangers than be afraid of them. I would rather know all this about myself than have more money than I need. I'd rather have something to love than a way to impress you.

There is nothing more genuine than breaking away from the chorus to learn the sound of your own voice.

People thrive by focusing on the question of who they really are - and connecting that to work that they truly love .

?It's not easy / It's not supposed to be easy / Most people make mistakes / Most people have to learn the hardest lessons more than once.

A conventional ‘success’ story is one where, with each next, the protagonist has more money, more respect, and more possessions. I’d like to suggest an alternative ‘success’ story – one where, with each next, the protagonist is closer to finding that spot where he’s no longer held back by his heart, and he explodes with talent, and his character blossoms, and the gift he has to offer the world is apparent.

Make sure your characters are worth spending ten hours with. That’s how long it takes to read a book. Reading a book is like being trapped in a room for ten hours with those characters. Think of your main characters as dinner guests. Would your friends want to spend ten hours with the characters you’ve created? Your characters can be loveable, or they can be evil, but they’d better be compelling. If not, your reader will be bored and leave.