Talking to Strangers quotes

“The book's argument is that humans are bad at reading strangers in three specific, predictable ways.”

“Gladwell uses the case to introduce the book's first claim: humans default to trust because most of social life requires it.”

“The leaders who met Hitler in person consistently emerged with the impression that he was a reasonable man whose ambitions had limits.”

“Ana Montes was a senior analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency who spent her entire career as a Cuban spy.”

“Harry Markopolos spent nearly a decade telling regulators that Bernard Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme.”

“Gladwell argues that the people around Sandusky were operating under the trust default applied to a man they knew personally over decades.”

“Researchers have shown clips of the sitcom Friends to viewers from various cultures.”

“The Knox chapter is short because the explanation is short: nothing about her behavior after the murder was probative of guilt.”

“Gladwell is not arguing that the assault was anything other than an assault, and he is explicit about the centrality of consent.”

“Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks, was subjected to extensive enhanced interrogation including 183 waterboardings.”

“The case study is Sylvia Plath, who died by gas oven in 1963.”

“The Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment in the early 1970s asked what would happen if police presence were systematically varied across neighborhoods.”