The key to making healthy decisions is to respect your future self. Honor him or her. Treat him or her like you would treat a friend or a loved one.

Very few people changed the world by sitting on their couch.

I tried the paleo diet, which is the caveman diet - lots of meat. I tried the raw food vegan diet. And I tried the calorie restriction diet, which is the idea is that if you eat very, very little - if you're on the verge of starvation, you will live a very long time. Whether or not you want to, of course, is the idea.

Probably 90 percent of our life decisions are powered by the twin engines of inertia and laziness.

Plus, in one of his e-mails, the guy said he didn't like pancakes. What kind of asshole doesn't like pancakes?

The best we can do, to paraphrase Pollan, is to eat whole foods, mostly plants, and not too much.

A loud noise will get your fight-or-flight response going. This, over the years, can cause real cardiovascular damage.