Walter Mischel Quotes

#1. If you want to know why some kids can wait and others can't, then you've got to think like they think,

Walter Mischel

#2. I made a pact with my three-year-old thumb-sucking daughter that if she stopped sucking her thumb, I would stop sucking my pipe.

Walter Mischel

#3. In fact, Bill Clinton's an excellent example of what he should be doing when he realizes that he's not invulnerable. He realized two things: his invulnerability was contextualized in two things: junk food, and he had a problem with certain kinds of women.

Walter Mischel

#4. Once you realize that will power is just a matter of learning how to control your attention and thoughts, you can really begin to increase it.

Walter Mischel

#5. James Watson summarizes the conclusion: A predisposition does not a predetermination make.

Walter Mischel

#6. I have an easy tendency to stumble and fall, which is not a good thing in an 84-year-old guy, so when I brush my teeth, then I do balancing exercises.

Walter Mischel

#7. If you can deal with hot emotions, then you can study for the S.A.T. instead of watching television, and you can save more money for retirement. It's not just about marshmallows.

Walter Mischel

#8. The idiosyncrasies of human preferences seem to reflect a competition between the impetuous limbic grasshopper and the provident prefrontal ant within each of us.

Walter Mischel

#9. I think the whole point about self-control, the whole point about willpower, is to help people understand that there are endless self-nudge techniques that can be enormously helpful and are very simple.

Walter Mischel

#10. Melancholy is not one of my emotions. Quite seriously, I don't do melancholy. It's a miserable way to be.

Walter Mischel