Robin Marantz Henig Quotes

28 quotes in 551 categories

• As the brain matures, one thing that happens is the pruning of the synapses. Synaptic pruning does not occur willy-nilly; it depends largely on how…
• The limbic system explodes during puberty, but the prefrontal cortex keeps maturing for another 10 years.
• The 20s are like the stem cell of human development: the pluripotent moment when any of several outcomes is possible. Decisions and actions during this…
• I regret not working harder to create true friendships with other couples, not seeking out people with whom to go do things and go places…
• Even though loneliness affects so many of us, it has gotten scant research attention compared to related conditions like depression or anxiety.
• When my husband and I were in our twenties, we thought it would be fun to take up cross-country skiing as a hobby. We were…
• Elderly parents tend to think their relationship with their middle-aged children is smoother than the children do. Adult grandchildren, who have little stake in pulling…
• Regret is a bitter emotion, so painful that the urge to avoid it often drives decision-making strategies.
• The tenuousness of modern life can make anyone feel overwrought.
• Some people, no matter how robust their stock portfolios or how healthy their children, are always mentally preparing for doom. They are just born worriers,…
• Anxiety is not fear, exactly, because fear is focused on something right in front of you - a real and objective danger.
• In the modern world, the anxious temperament does offer certain benefits: caution, introspection, the capacity to work alone. These can be adaptive qualities.
• Beliefs about how lying looks are plentiful and often contradictory: depending on whom you choose to believe, liars can be detected because they fidget a…
• The English language has 112 words for deception, according to one count, each with a different shade of meaning: collusion, fakery, malingering, self-deception, confabulation, prevarication,…
• Lies can be verbal or nonverbal, kindhearted or self-serving, devious or bald-faced; they can be lies of omission or lies of commission; they can be…
• Angels, demons, spirits, wizards, gods and witches have peppered folk religions since mankind first started telling stories.
• When a trait is universal, evolutionary biologists look for a genetic explanation and wonder how that gene or genes might enhance survival or reproductive success.
• Hardships of early human life favored the evolution of certain cognitive tools, among them the ability to infer the presence of organisms that might do…
• The human brain has evolved the capacity to impose a narrative, complete with chronology and cause-and-effect logic, on whatever it encounters, no matter how apparently…
• Parents bobble between a nostalgia-infused yearning for their children to play and fear that time spent playing is time lost to more practical pursuits.

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