“When we studied them, excellent performers were rarely well rounded. On the contrary, they were sharp.”

“Our definition of a weakness is anything that gets in the way of excellent performance.”

“Skills are so enticingly helpful that they obscure their two flaws. The first flaw is that while skills will help you perform, they will not help you excel.”

“Satisfactions provide the last clue to talent. As we described in the previous chapter, your strongest synaptic connections are designed so that when you use them, it feels good. Thus, obviously, if it feels good when you perform an activity, chances are that you are using a talent.”

“At an early age, you started hearing it: It's a virtue to be "well-rounded."... They might as well have said : Become as dull as you possibly can be.”

“The definition of a strength that we will use throughout this book is quite specific: consistent near perfect performance in an activity.”

“The point here is not that you should always forgo this kind of weakness fixing. The point is that you should see it for what it is: damage control, not development. And as we mentioned earlier, damage control can prevent failure, but it will never elevate you to excellence.”