Angela Duckworth

When people think of the word 'drive,' they often think you have it or you don't, and that's where we're wrong. Drive is something that can be encouraged by a wonderful teacher, by a terrific classroom environment, by an awesome soccer team that you are on, and it can be squashed as well. ”

My dad was not super-intentional in his parenting. He was very self-absorbed. I won't say mean or selfish per se, but very self-absorbed. I think he was just thinking out loud. ”

I don't spend a lot of time thinking about my genes because I can't do anything about them. ”

We have found a direct correlation between grit and positive emotions, but the fact that I have no evidence that grit is bad for you doesn't mean it's not. It's always a possibility that in the future researchers will discover a downside to grit. ”

I will say that if my wildest dreams come true, I will, like, wake up one day, and I will be Carol Dweck, right? Because she is like everything I want to be. ”

There are no shortcuts to true excellence. ”

There is a fluency and an ease with which true mastery and expertise always expresses itself, whether it be in writing, whether it be in a mathematical proof, whether it be in a dance that you see on stage, really in every domain. But I think the question is, you know, where does that fluency and mastery come from? ”

The parenting style that is good for grit is also the parenting style good for most other things: Be really, really demanding, and be very, very supportive. ”

Childhood is generally far too early to know what we want to be when we grow up. Longitudinal studies following thousands of people across time have shown that most people only begin to gravitate toward certain vocational interests, and away from others, around middle school. ”

When I was 27 years old, I left a very demanding job in management consulting for a job that was even more demanding: teaching. I went to teach seventh graders math in the New York City public schools. ”