Daniel Levitin Quotes

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• The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert - in anything. In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again…no one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.

  Daniel Levitin

  Basketball, Player, Numbers

  "Outliers: The Story of Success". Book by Malcolm Gladwell, November 18, 2008.

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• Whenever humans come together for any reason, music is there: weddings, funerals, graduation from college, men marching off to war, stadium sporting events, a night on the town, prayer, a romantic dinner, mothers rocking their infants to sleep ... music is a part of the fabric of everyday life.

  Daniel Levitin

  Mother, Prayer, War

  Daniel J. Levitin (2011). “This Is Your Brain On Music: Understanding a Human Obsession”, p.6, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• The brain has an attentional mode called the "mind wandering mode" that was only recently identified. This is when thoughts move seamlessly from one to another, often to unrelated thoughts, without you controlling where they go. This brain state acts as a neural reset button, allowing us to come back to our work with a refreshed perspective. Different people find they enter this mode in different ways: reading, a walk in nature, looking at art, meditating, and napping. A 15-minute nap can produce the equivalent of a 10-point boost in IQ.

  Daniel Levitin

  Art, Moving, Reading

  "Daniel J. Levitin Q&A: 'We've created more information in the past few years than in all of human history before us'". Interview with Lisa O'Kelly, www.theguardian.com. January 18, 2015.

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• Our bodies like rhythm and our brains like melody and harmony.

  Daniel Levitin

  Brain, Body, Harmony

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• We really are living in an age of information overload. Google estimates that there are 300 exabytes (300 followed by 18 zeros) of human-made information in the world today. Only four years ago there were just 30 exabytes. We've created more information in the past few years than in all of human history before us.

  Daniel Levitin

  Past, Years, Google

  "Daniel J. Levitin Q&A: 'We've created more information in the past few years than in all of human history before us'". Interview with Lisa O'Kelly, www.theguardian.com. January 18, 2015.

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• Love is about feeling that there is something bigger than just ourselves and our own worries and existence. Whether it is love of another person, of country, of God, of an idea, love is fundamentally an intense devotion to this notion that something is bigger than us. Love is ultimately larger than friendship, comfort, ceremony, knowledge, or joy. Indeed, as the Four Wise Ones once said, it may be all you need.

  Daniel Levitin

  Wise, Country, Love Is

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• The power of art is that it can connect us to one another, and to larger truths about what it means to be alive and what it means to be human.

  Daniel Levitin

  Art, Mean, Alive

  Daniel J. Levitin (2011). “This Is Your Brain On Music: Understanding a Human Obsession”, p.244, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Decision-making is difficult because, by its nature, it involves uncertainty. If there was no uncertainty, decisions would be easy! The uncertainty exists because we don't know the future, we don't know if the decision we make will lead to the best possible outcome. Cognitive science has taught us that relying on our gut or intuition often leads to bad decisions, particularly in cases where statistical information is available. Our guts and our brains didn't evolve to deal with probabilistic thinking.

  Daniel Levitin

  Thinking, Decisions We Make, Taught Us

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• In order to be a world-class expert in anything, be it audiology, drama, music, art, gymnastics, whatever, one needs to have a minimum of 10,000 hours of practice. Unfortunately, it doesn't mean that if you put in 10,000 hours that you will become an expert, but there aren't any cases where someone has achieved world-class mastery without it! So the time spent at the activity is indeed the most important and influential factor.

  Daniel Levitin

  Art, Drama, Mean

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• The constant nagging in your mind of undone things pulls you out of the present--tethers you to a mind-set of the future so that you're never fully in the moment and enjoying what's now.

  Daniel Levitin

  Mind, Nagging, Moments

  Daniel Levitin (2015). “The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload”, p.90, Penguin UK

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• A song playing comprises a very specific and vivid set of memory cues. Because the multiple-trace memory models assume that context is encoded along with memory traces, the music that you have listened to at various times of your life is cross-coded with the events of those times. That is, the music is linked to events of the time, and those events are linked to the music.

  Daniel Levitin

  Song, Memories, Events

  Daniel J. Levitin (2006). “This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession”, p.175, Penguin

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• The most important, the longest lasting, the strongest emotional, and the most practiced memories are the ones that are embedded the deepest in the brain, and because we have retrieved them so many times previously, they are the most able to be retrieved. We all hear about people who can remember their youth, their phone number, or street address from 70 years ago, but they cannot recall what they had for breakfast. The memory of this morning's breakfast wasn't rehearsed, and wasn't very important, so it fades away quickly.

  Daniel Levitin

  Morning, Memories, Emotional

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• Americans spend more money on music than on sex or prescription drugs

  Daniel Levitin

  Sex, Drug, More Money

  Daniel J. Levitin (2011). “This Is Your Brain On Music: Understanding a Human Obsession”, p.7, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• A bowl of pudding only has taste when I put it in my mouth - when it is in contact with my tongue. It doesn't have taste or flavor sitting in my fridge, only the potential.

  Daniel Levitin

  Flavor, Mouths, Taste

  Daniel J. Levitin (2006). “This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession”, p.36, Penguin

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• You'd think people would realize they're bad at multitasking and would quit. But a cognitive illusion sets in, fueled in part by a dopamine-adrenaline feedback loop, in which multitaskers think they are doing great.

  Daniel Levitin

  Thinking, People, Multitasking

  Daniel Levitin (2015). “The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload”, p.327, Penguin UK

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• I have never seen a proton or electron spinning around it. I have never actually seen a chromosome. I trust that they exist because people who I trust tell me they do.

  Daniel Levitin

  People

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Music may be the activity that prepared our pre-human ancestors for speech communication and for the very cognitive, representational flexibility necessary to become humans.

  Daniel Levitin

  Music, Communication, Speech

  Daniel J. Levitin (2011). “This Is Your Brain On Music: Understanding a Human Obsession”, p.260, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Ten thousand hours is equivalent to roughly three hours a day, or 20 hours a week, of practice over 10 years... No one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.

  Daniel Levitin

  Years, Practice, Class

  "Malcolm Gladwell on Joy, Gates and the Beatles and on stage" by Jack Schofield, www.theguardian.com. November 16, 2008.

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• The most fundamental principle of the organized mind, the one most critical to keeping us from forgetting or losing things, is to shift the burden of organizing from our brains to the external world.

  Daniel Levitin

  Organized Mind, Brain, Principles

  "The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload". Book by Daniel Levitin, 2014.

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• Although I don't know Paul McCartney, a mutual friend told me that Paul was reading my book, This Is Your Brain on Music, and stopped after chapter two. McCartney said he was concerned that if he learned more about how he does what he does (as far as composing music), he may not be able to do it anymore!

  Daniel Levitin

  Book, Reading, Two

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• No one alive today has a single ancestor in his or her past who died in infancy. We are the champions, my friend!

  Daniel Levitin

  Past, Winning, Champion

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• Out of 30,000 edible plants thought to exist on earth, just eleven account for 93% of all that humans eat: oats, corn, rice, wheat, potatoes, yucca (also called tapioca or cassava), sorghum, millet, beans, barley, and rye.

  Daniel Levitin

  Oats, Earth, Corn

  Daniel J. Levitin (2014). “The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload”, p.42, Penguin

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• No other species lives with regret over past events, or makes deliberate plans for future ones.

  Daniel Levitin

  Regret, Past, Events

  Daniel J. Levitin (2014). “The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload”, p.36, Penguin

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• The processing capacity of the conscious mind has been estimated at 120 bits per second.

  Daniel Levitin

  Mind, Conscious, Capacity

  Daniel J. Levitin (2014). “The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload”, p.24, Penguin

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• For the artist, the goal of the painting or musical composition is not to convey literal truth, but an aspect of a universal truth that if successful, will continue to move and to touch people even as contexts, societies and cultures change. For the scientist, the goal of a theory is to convey "truth for now"--to replace an old truth, while accepting that someday this theory, too, will be replaced by a new "truth," because that is the way science advances.

  Daniel Levitin

  Moving, Successful, Artist

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