The first step toward changing the world is to change our vision of the world and of our place in it.

Our current obsession with creativity is the result of our continued striving for immortality in an era when most people no longer believe in an afterlife.

America being behind France in upward mobility is a little bit like France being behind America in Croissants and Afternoon Sex.

Market forces have no intrinsically moral direction, which is why, before he wrote The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Ethics should precede economics. But it doesn't have to. . . . We know this because we've seen the results of capitalism without conscience: the pollution of the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat; the endangerment of workers; and the sale of dangerous products - from cars to toys to drugs. All in pursuit of ever-greater profits.

One of the main reasons I wrote The Sleep Revolution was to examine this ancient, essential, and mysterious phenomenon from all angles and to explore the ways we can use sleep to help regain control over our out-of-kilter lives.

Clearly drive, IQ, and hard work are incredibly important. But ultimately what matters most is resilience--the ability to quickly rebound from failures, indeed to see failure as a stepping stone to success.

Don't buy society’s definition of success. Because it’s not working for anyone. It’s not working for women, it's not working for men, it's not working for polar bears, it's not working for the cicadas that are apparently about to emerge and swarm us. It’s only truly working for those who make pharmaceuticals for stress, sleeplessness and high blood pressure.