Hi, I'm Susan!

#1 NYT bestselling author. Unlikely award-winning speaker. Host of the Quiet Life Community and Audible series.Welcome to the world of QUIET and BITTERSWEET

The Quiet Life with Susan Cain

A Community

This community is for kindred spirits who prefer quiet over hubbub, depth over superficiality, and sensitivity over cool. Join us! You'll never be forced to do anything groupy.

Praise for The Quiet Life:
"It’s like free therapy. You are the guiding light."

"Receiving something in my inbox from you is like curling up on a rainy afternoon and breathing out a sigh...bliss."

Susan Cain'S LATEST MASTERPIECE

Bittersweet

How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole

An exploration of the power of a bittersweet, melancholic outlook on life, and why our culture has been so blind to its value.

Acclaim for Bittersweet

Susan Cain’s Bittersweet grabs you by the heart and doesn’t let go. I’ve thought about the depth and beauty in Cain’s research and storytelling every day since I finished the book. I will always be grateful for how much Quiet and Bittersweet have helped me understand myself and how I engage with the world.

Brené Brown, Ph.D., author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Atlas of the Heart

A decade ago, I found myself inside Quiet. With Bittersweet, Susan Cain has described and validated my existence once again! Her new book reaffirms that my constant, achy awareness of life’s brutiful is a way of being shared across the ages with artists, healers, and anyone who pays deep attention. I’ll place Bittersweet in the hands of all my feely, achy, beautiful friends.

Glennon Doyle, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Untamed and founder and president of Together Rising

This is the rare book that doesn’t just open your eyes—it touches your heart and sings to your soul. Susan Cain gave a voice to introverts, and now she masterfully paints our heaviest emotions in a light that’s long overdue. Bittersweet is the perfect cure for toxic positivity and a sparkling ode to the beauty of the human condition.

Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again

Bittersweet is astonishing: one of the most gracefully written, palpably human books I've read in years.

Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of DRIVE

This book is an absolute triumph: it's for anyone who has ever really lived, loved, or lost.

Greg McKeownNew York Times bestselling author of Effortless

Bittersweet is an incredibly uplifting book—transcendent even. 

Writer’s Digest

In a profound new book set to be as influential as Quiet, Cain ... argues that recognising the value of the “bittersweet”—that is, learning to weather times of pain and loss is powerful and vital.

The Bookseller

An antidote for our uncertain times and a toolbox for using angst and yearning as a means of transforming pain into creativity, transcendence, and love.

Oprah Daily

Cain has written a gorgeous, compassionate, companionate book.

Toronto Star

An original and contrarian thinker, Susan Cain compellingly argues that the messier parts of life might indirectly lead us to the most rewarding parts of it.

Seattle Times

Bittersweet is a beautiful read in its entirety.

–Maria Popova, The Marginalian

Susan Cain finds what is undervalued, quiet, and precious. In Bittersweet she takes you to a room in your own heart full of treasures that you had forgotten about. This is a book to read, feel, and savor 

–Jonathan Haidt

Bittersweet...resists classification, hovering like a butterfly between poetic mysticism and social psychology, as it dips into philosophy and Buddhism in search of the correlation between beauty and sadness.”

–Ian McFarlane, The Canberra Times

Named BITTERSWEET one of the “Best Self Help Books On Topics That Matter Most”!

The Wall Street Journal

Courses

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Bittersweet: Practices & Reflections

Join me for 30 days of exploration: through audio lessons, guided meditations, and reflections on art and music, curated and designed to help you unlock the transformative power of bittersweetness.

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Quiet at Work Course

Quiet at Work is a 30 day interactive + audio course for introverts that gives you the knowledge, tools and techniques you need to thrive at work or in any professional environment.

susan ted talk

New from susan cain

Bittersweet TED Talk

The hidden power of sad songs and rainy days

Have you ever wondered why you like sad music? Do you find comfort or inspiration in a rainy day? In this profound, poetic talk, Susan Cain invites you to embrace the feeling of longing—or the place where joy and sorrow meet—as a gateway to creativity, connection, and love. Accompanied by the splendid sounds of violinist Min Kym, Cain meditates on how heartache unexpectedly brings us closer to the sublime beauty of life.

Quizzes

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How bittersweet are you, at this moment in time?

Take our 15-question test to find out! It takes three minutes to complete. Please indicate how much you agree with the following statements, from 0 (not at all) to 10 (completely).

Quiet Quiz: Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

This is an informal 12 question quiz, adapted from Quiet by Susan Cain, based on characteristics of introversion commonly accepted by contemporary researchers.

Join Susan’s Newsletter, Kindred

For kindred spirits who prefer quiet over hubbub, depth over superficiality, and sensitivity over cool. Get the 10 key teachings from Susan’s book, Bittersweet, when you subscribe.

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