Quotes By Nate Silver

We're not that much smarter than we used to be, even though we have much more information - and that means the real skill now is learning how to pick out the useful information from all this noise.

First of all, I think it's odd that people who cover politics wouldn't have any political views.

If you're keeping yourself in the bubble and only looking at your own data or only watching the TV that fits your agenda then it gets boring.

To be a very, very minor, eighth-tier celebrity, you realize, 'Hey, celebrities are just like us.'

You don't want to influence the same system you are trying to forecast.

If I had a spreadsheet on my computer, it looked like I was busy.

People gravitate toward information that implies a happier outlook for them.

We want to get 80%-85% of predictions right, not 100%. Or else we calibrated our estimates in the wrong way.

In baseball you have terrific data and you can be a lot more creative with it.

The Protestant Reformation had a lot to do with the printing press, where Martin Luther's theses were reproduced about 250,000 times, and so you had widespread dissemination of ideas that hadn't circulated in the mainstream before.

I don't think that somebody who is observing or predicting behavior should also be participating in the 'experiment.'

Walk rate is probably the area in which a pitcher has the most room to improve, but a rate that high is tough to overcome.

I think punditry serves no purpose.

We must become more comfortable with probability and uncertainty.

I was looking for something like baseball, where there's a lot of data and the competition was pretty low. That's when I discovered politics.

When you get into statistical analysis, you don't really expect to achieve fame. Or to become an Internet meme. Or be parodied by 'The Onion' - or be the subject of a cartoon in 'The New Yorker.' I guess I'm kind of an outlier there.

The public is even more pessimistic about the economy than even the most bearish economists are.