Quotes About Curiosity

In a sense, this book is not an autobiography but a biography, because I am writing about someone I used to know. Yes, these events are true, yet sometimes they seemed to have happened to someone else, and I often felt like a curious onlooker or someone trying to remember a dream. I ignored my stand-up career for twenty-five years, but now, having finished this memoir, I view this time with surprising warmth. One can have, it turns out, an affection for the war years.

It's so beautiful where I am today that it makes me wonder where I am.

My plan was to walk by on my side of the street and not look over her way. This, I felt, was a very clever masculine move: to meet and ultimately seduce through no contact at all. She would be made aware of me as a mysterious figure, someone with no need of her whatsoever. This is compelling to a woman.

I see other people crossing the street at the curb and I don't know how they can do it.

big brown eyeballs do a quick roll around the inside of the room.

But wouldn't it be nice if we all smuggled a few childlike instincts across the border into adulthood? We'd spend more time saying what we mean and asking questions we care about;

Have fun, think small, don't fear the obvious.

Consider the kind of questions that kids ask. Sure, they may be silly or simplistic or out of bounds. But kids are also relentlessly curious and relatively unbiased. Because they know so little, they don't carry around the preconceptions that often stop people from seeing things as they are. When it comes to solving problems, this is a big advantage.

It's much better to ask small questions than big ones.

Another cardinal rule of thinking like a child: don't be afraid of the obvious.

Steven D. Levitt

If you are willing to confront the obvious, you will end up asking a lot of questions that others don't.

The impulse to investigate can only be set free if you stop pretending to know answers that you don't. Because the incentives to pretend are so strong, this may require some bravery on your part.

Steven D. Levitt

To Chen's surprise, Felix and the others responded rationally. When the price of a given food rose, the monkeys bought less of it, and when the price fell, they bought more. The most basic law of economics—that the demand curve slopes downward—held for monkeys as well as humans.

Doctor? ¿Es usted alguna clase de científico?". Y el doctor decía: "Señor, soy toda clase de científico". Y yo saltaba: "¡Sí! ¡Sí! ¡Eso es lo que yo quiero ser! ¡Toda clase de científico!».

The next time you run into a question that you can only pretend to answer, go ahead and say "I don't know"—and then follow up, certainly, with "but maybe I can find out." And work as hard as you can to do that. You may be surprised by how receptive people are to your confession, especially when you come through with the real answer a day or a week later.

The next time you run into a question that you can only pretend to answer, go ahead and say "I don't know"—and then follow up, certainly, with "but maybe I can find out." And work as hard as you can to do that.

Steven D. Levitt

Steven D. Levitt

Particular gift is the ability to ask such questions. For instance: If drug dealers make so much money, why do they still live with their mothers? Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What really caused crime rates to plunge during the past decade? Do real-estate agents have their clients' best interests at heart? Why do black parents give their children names that may hurt their career prospects? Do schoolteachers cheat to meet high-stakes testing.

If it takes a lot of courage to admit you don't know all the answers, just imagine how hard it is to admit you don't even know the right question. But if you ask the wrong question, you are almost guaranteed to get the wrong answer.

When you ask the question differently, you look for answers in different places.

So when it comes to solving problems, channeling your inner child can really pay off. It all starts with thinking small.