Leonard Mlodinow

"Listeners instinctively detect that when we lower the usual pitch of our voice, we are sad, and when we raise it, we are angry or fearful."

"Touch seems to be such an important tool for enhancing social cooperation and affiliation that we have evolved a special physical route along which those subliminal feelings of social connection travel from skin to brain."

"One of the things your unconscious mind does for you - and it's a great gift - is it gives you extra courage to view the outer world and it does that by giving you an extra-special view of yourself."

"Our subliminal mental processes operate outside awareness because they arise in these portions of our mind that are inaccessible to our conscious self their inaccessibility is due to the architecture of the brain rather than because they have been subject to Freudian motivational forces like repression."

"Expressive speech, with modulation in pitch and volume, and a minimum of noticeable pauses, boosts credibility and enhances the impression of intelligence."

"Nonverbal communication forms a social language that is in many ways richer and more fundamental than our words."

"Scientists attach great importance to the human capacity for spoken language. But we also have a parallel track of nonverbal communication, which may reveal more than our carefully chosen words, and sometimes be at odds with them."

"One of the most surprising forms of nonverbal communication is the way we automatically adjust the amount of time we spend looking into another's eyes as a function of our relative social position."

"Touch is our most highly developed sense when we are born, and it remains a fundamental mode of communication throughout a baby's first year and an important influence throughout a person's life."

"A failure doesn't mean you are unworthy, nor does it preclude success on the next try."