“Extroverts are more likely to take a quick-and-dirty approach to problem-solving, trading accuracy for speed, making increasing numbers of mistakes as they go, and abandoning ship altogether when the problem seems too difficult or frustrating. Introverts think before they act, digest information thoroughly, stay on task longer, give up less easily, and work more accurately. Introverts and extroverts also direct their attention differently: if you leave them to their own devices, the introverts tend to sit around wondering about things, imagining things, recalling events from their past, and making plans for the future. The extroverts are more likely to focus on what's happening around them. It's as if extroverts are seeing "what is" while their introverted peers are asking "what if.”

“Don't think of introversion as something that needs to be cured...Spend your free the way you like, not the way you think you're supposed to.”

“A widely held, but rarely articulated, belief in our society is that the ideal self is bold, alpha, gregarious. Introversion is viewed somewhere between disappointment and pathology.”

“All personality traits have their good side and their bad side. But for a long time, we've seen introversion only through its negative side and extroversion mostly through its positive side.”

“Shyness is about the fear of social judgments - at a job interview or a party you might be excessively worried about what people think of you. Whereas an introvert might not feel any of those things at all, they simply have the preference to be in a quieter setting.”

“In most job interviews, people say they are looking for people skills and emotional intelligence. That's reasonable, but the question is, how do you define what that looks like?”

“We need to do teacher training to educate them about what temperament means. Shyness is painful and you want to help a child with shyness - but the underlying temperament of being a careful, sensitive person is to be honoured, valued and respected.”

“Most people who have grown up introverted in this very extroverted culture of ours have had painful experiences of feeling like they are out of step with what's expected of them. Parenting can pose unique challenges for introverted parents, who fear that their own painful experiences will be repeated in their children's lives.”

“...I also believe that introversion is my greatest strength. I have such a strong inner life that I’m never bored and only occasionally lonely. No matter what mayhem is happening around me, I know I can always turn inward.”

“Osborn was a founding partner of the advertising agency Batten, Barton, Durstine, and Osborn (BBDO), but it was as an author that he really made his mark, beginning with the day in 1938 that a magazine editor invited him to lunch and asked what his hobby was. “Imagination,” replied Osborn.”

“Introverts living under the Extroversion 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”