260 Quotes by Nate Silver

I've just always been a bit of a dork.

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

Actually, one of the better indicators historically of how well the stock market will do is just a Gallup poll, when you ask Americans if you think it's a good time to invest in stocks, except it goes the opposite direction of what you would expect. When the markets going up, it in fact makes it more prone toward decline.

I have to make sure that I make good choices and that if I put my name on it, it's a high-quality endeavor and that I have time to be a human being.

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

I prefer more to kind of show people different things than tell them 'oh, here's what you should believe' and, over time, you can build up a rapport with your audience.

The thing that people associate with expertise, authoritativeness, kind of with a capital 'A,' don't correlate very well with who's actually good at making predictions.

I've become invested with this symbolic power. It really does transcend what I'm actually doing and what I actually deserve.

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