What would you rather do? Fix a small problem well or answer a small problem well or flail around at the big ones and pay a lot of lip service? Stephen J. Dubner More Quotes by Stephen J. Dubner More Quotes From Stephen J. Dubner The Immaculate Reception became the Zapruder Film of sports. Stephen J. Dubner receptionfilmsports In at least one way we are atypical bloggers. That’s because we just keep on posting. The typical blogger, like most people who go on diets and budgets, quits after a few months, weeks, or in many cases, days. Stephen J. Dubner thoughtfulfunnypeople The world is complicated. But does every problem require a complicated solution? Stephen J. Dubner solutionproblemcomplicatedworld If the day's writing has been particularly good or particularly bad, a glass of scotch will be involved. Stephen J. Dubner daybadgoodwriting We've been conditioned to think that quitting is a failure, a form of failure. How do we know that that's true? Stephen J. Dubner truethinkknowfailure As everyone knows, tips constitute the bulk of a waiter's or waitress's income. But they are also optional, at least in theory. Does it really seem like a good idea to make someone's salary so susceptible to customers' whims on a given day - or whether any customers happen to show up at all? Stephen J. Dubner someonedaygoodsalary We're all biased, right, in many different ways - politically, religiously, ideologically, the way our family raised us - and that's fine. Nobody wants to live in a world where everybody thinks exactly the same. The key, though, is to try to figure out where your biases are holding you back from solving problems. Stephen J. Dubner problemsyoufamilyworld Set aside a half hour or an hour to rethink the way you make decisions, the habits you have, the biases you may have. And if you think of things, if you come with a little bit of a blank slate and be willing to acknowledge what you don't know, and you'd be willing to think like a child, I think it'll help not only individuals but society at large. Stephen J. Dubner childthinkyousociety If the world gets a lot hotter in a hurry and the primary aim is to cool it down, then the current plan of carbon mitigation will almost certainly not be effective. It'll be too little, too late, and too optimistic - in large part because the atmospheric half-life of CO2 is roughly 100 years. Stephen J. Dubner downcoolaimworld I like to bring my kids to the voting booth to show them how it works. I'll let them draw their own conclusions as to how worthwhile it is. Stephen J. Dubner ownhowlikevoting We're surrounded by big problems and people who have been attacking the same big problems for years and years and years and years, and often they're not getting anywhere. Stephen J. Dubner surroundedproblemsbigpeople What I think of as 'freakonomics' is mostly storytelling around an idea - not a theme but an idea. I like ideas much more than themes. Themes are boring. Themes are, 'Wool is back,' but ideas are, 'Why is wool back?' Stephen J. Dubner backthinkboringideas I was a math and science kid in school, but I ended up going the route of writing and music in college. Stephen J. Dubner musiccollegescienceschool Of all the things that the digital revolution has produced, once of the coolest, simplest ones is you can now contact people who write books that you read. You used to have to write a letter to the publisher and hope they passed it along, which they never did. Stephen J. Dubner neveryouhopepeople I'm a writer. I've been a journalist for my whole adult life. Stephen J. Dubner adultbeenwholelife Think small. Don't pretend you know the answers. Experiment; get feedback. These are all the premises of 'Think Like a Freak,' really. Stephen J. Dubner smallthinkknowyou If I make the mistake of eating breakfast, I want to go back to bed and/or eat again immediately. Stephen J. Dubner backeatingmistakebreakfast While in the middle of writing a book, I have a hard time reading other books for pleasure. Stephen J. Dubner readingwritingtimebook We took our Catholicism very seriously. We never missed Mass; our father was a lector, and both our parents taught catechism. At 3 in the afternoon on Good Friday, we gathered in the living room for 10 minutes of silence in front of a painting of the Crucifixion. Stephen J. Dubner parentsgoodsilencefather Statistics on religious affiliation are notoriously slippery: the government isn't allowed to gather such data, and the membership claims of religious organizations aren't entirely reliable. Stephen J. Dubner membershipdatastatisticsgovernment
