Quotes from Martin Lindstrom

Russia's biggest downside, for me at least, is its lack of color. Being in Russia is like breathing different oxygen, and I can feel a gray shade pulling down over me the moment I board a plane to fly there. No one is animated. No one smiles, or laughs. Ask most Russians what they like most about visiting other countries and they'll say it's the sight of other people having fun. Throughout

Ice-cold temperatures typically kill whatever minimal flavor beer has to begin with, which in the case of both Brazil and the United States, indicates that residents in both countries are averse to strong bitter flavors.

We are afraid, for example, of letting others know more about us than we know about ourselves, fearing most of all that our masks will slip, and will lose control, letting others see us as we truly are.

A Russian fashion consultant once told me that fashion stops at the Siberian border, where instead of showing off, the prerogative is survival. The

The brands we like, and buy, and surround ourselves with—and by now you know I define a "brand" as anything from the music on our playlists to our shoes, to our sheets, to our toothpaste, to the artwork hanging on our walls—have the profoundest possible things to say about who we are.

the more physical touching there is among people, the healthier the country is

If a living place can be likened to a city, the art on the wall, or the lack of art, is the first sign

La palabra «nostalgia» viene de la palabra compuesta griega nosto, que significa «ir a casa», y algos, que significa «dolor».

In early 2007, in response to countless customer complaints, Brussels Airlines reluctantly altered the thirteen dots in their airline logo to fourteen.9 If you want to sit in the thirteenth row on your Air France, KLM, Iberia (or for that matter, Continental) flight, you're plain out of luck, as there isn't one.

Whenever I visit the United States, for example, one of the first things I notice is that no one ever touches one another, especially the men. In America, touch is perceived as sexual. At the same time, American culture overemphasizes sports, especially football, which is one of the few places where men are given permission to touch, slap, wrestle, tackle and hug one another.

Paulo Coelho: «Si piensas que la aventura es peligrosa, prueba con la rutina. Es letal». No

When we read a book, these specialized cells respond as if we are actually doing what the book character is doing."5

Russians and Saudis both expressed frustration with the leadership of their countries, and as many Saudis as Russians told me they would happily move someplace else.

paintings in Saudi homes all had as their subject matter one theme: water. Streams. Lakes. Waterfalls. Oceans. (It's worth noting that Arabic speakers are four times more likely than other speakers to use flower and plant emoticons.)4

A recent study by two York University researchers found that Big Pharma spends nearly twice as much on promotion and advertising as it does on research and development.

Americans are the most overmedicated people on earth, with overall domestic sales of prescription drugs totaling $ 235.4 billion. 33

The Weather simply didn't exist in Colombia. I later found out that no one asks or talks about the weather in Medellín, as it never varies, nor are there any television meteorologists. Every day the temperature is in the mid-seventies, with sunlight and an occasional cloud cover. Yet even in Southern California, where the same is true, natives talk about the weather constantly. As

Americans' reputation for friendliness is the absence of physicality. In the United States, no one ever touches anyone else and if they do so by accident, most apologize immediately. Physical contact is seen by many as analogous to trespassing on posted land,

In every other country across the world, guests staying at a hotel are free to open the windows in their rooms, with the exception of one: the United States. American hotel windows are sealed, or painted shut, or manufactured in such a way that they can't open or close in the first place.

sponsors are letting us know that it's futile to hide, duck,

The multitude of options American diners face on restaurant menus isn't just a smart business decision. It deliberately avoids offending all tastes, palates and dietary restrictions.

If most of the time they do and feel and think and watch and eat and drink precisely what everyone else does, are Americans really free? There

My Subtext Research revealed that the women I met cared less about the time they spent in their cars than they did about leaving the safety nets they called home. Distance wasn't an issue; leaving the safe space was. In general, their lives as nonworking wives and mothers revolved around routines and rituals, with their cars becoming almost like small houses on wheels. One

By studying the number of fingerprinted smudge marks on a phone or tablet screen, it's easy to determine the approximate age of its owner.