Talking to Strangers

Be cautious of placing too much weight on credentials and status when assessing character.

Just because someone looks and sounds like us does not mean that they see the world the same way we do.

Make the default assumption that the stranger you are dealing with is well-intentioned and honest.

Conversing with a stranger requires paying as much attention to what is said as to how it is said.

We must become more aware of our biases and tendency to misinterpret others. Improving communication across barriers takes time and effort.

Cultural and language barriers also impede our ability to accurately interpret strangers' words and actions.

People are bad at detecting lies and deception in strangers. We rely too much on appearance, tone, andconfidence when assessing trustworthiness.

The issue with spies is not that there is something brilliant about them. It is that there is something wrong with us.

You believe someone not because you have no doubts about them. Belief is not the absence of doubt. You believe someone because you don’t have enough doubts about them.

When you confront the stranger, you have to ask yourself where and when you’re confronting the stranger.

The harder we work at getting strangers to reveal themselves, the more elusive they become.

The thing we want to learn about a stranger is fragile. If we tread carelessly, it will crumple under our feet.

We think we can transform the stranger, without cost or sacrifice, into the familiar and the known, and we can’t.

The kind of easy face-to-face interaction that each had lived with his entire life had suddenly become hopelessly complicated.

The most sophisticated intelligence service in the world had been played for a fool.

Yet all that extra information Chamberlain gathered from his personal interactions with Hitler didn’t help him see Hitler more clearly. It did the opposite.

We think we can easily see into the hearts of others based on the flimsiest of clues. We jump at the chance to judge strangers.

Strangers are not easy.

The most dangerous spies are rarely diabolical.

We have a default to truth: our operating assumption is that the people we are dealing with are honest.

Belief is not the absence of doubt. You believe someone because you don’t have enough doubts about them.

The advantage to human beings lies in assuming that strangers are truthful.

The Holy Fool is a truth-teller because he is an outcast.

Transparency is a myth—an idea we’ve picked up from watching too much television and reading too many novels.

If you believe that the way a stranger looks and acts is a reliable clue to the way they feel... then you’re going to make mistakes.

When the rules are clear, each party can easily and accurately infer what the other wants from the way he or she behaves.

Alcohol makes the thing in the foreground even more salient and the thing in the background less significant.

Talking to Strangers is an attempt to understand what really happened by the side of the highway that day in rural Texas.

Sometimes the best conversations between strangers allow the stranger to remain a stranger.

The people who were right about Hitler were those who knew the least about him personally. The people who were wrong about Hitler were the ones who had talked with him for hours.