Stephen J. Dubner Quotes

Is an intelligent human being likely to be much more than a large-scale manufacturer of misunderstanding?

The world only goes round by misunderstanding.

Hindsight bias makes surprises vanish.

Characters are often revealed by the ways they misapprehend others.

If you look at the history of big obstacles in understanding our world, there's usually an intuitive assumption underlying them that's wrong.

It's easy to fall into the trap of assuming that a new technology is very similar to its predecessors. A new technology is often perceived as the linear extension of the previous one, and this leads us to believe the new technology will fill the same roles - just a little faster or a little smaller or a little lighter.

After 'The Poisonwood Bible' was published, several people believed that my parents were missionaries, which could not be further from the truth.

If you understand everything, you must be misinformed.

But what if our intelligence is wrong?

It is the habit of mankind to mistake familiarity for accurate knowledge.

I understand the difference between perception and reality.

People think when you're struggling and not winning matches it's because you're not working hard. That's the biggest misnomer in tennis.

Misunderstanding is my cornerstone. It's everyone's, come to think of it. Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet.

There can be an easy way to interpret things some times and it seems like maybe I'm on the wrong side of those interpretations a lot of those times.

People used to assume I was a serious/sad person because of my music for some reason.

When you fail to communicate, there are gray areas. And when there's gray areas, then bad things happen.

People have linked me to a lot of people. But people also project what they want to see for you.

I think people always misjudge me.

There's a big advantage in people underestimating you.

Perception's not reality.

I think I'm pretty misunderstoood.

I don't want any gimmicks. The fact that people think that Whack is a gimmick is so crazy.

I think people have a warped sense of who I am.

People will hear one thing and just run with it.

One of the things that I see on Twitter is that people think they know what you think about things you haven't discussed.