If people can construct a simple and coherent story, they will feel confident regardless of how well grounded it is in reality.

My interest in well-being evolved from my interest in decision making - from raising the question of whether people know what they will want in the future and whether the things that people want for themselves will make them happy.

We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.

However, optimism is highly valued, socially and in the market; people and firms reward the providers of dangerously misleading information more than they reward truth tellers. One of the lessons of the financial crisis that led to the Great Recession is that there are periods in which competition, among experts and among organizations, creates powerful forces that favor a collective blindness to risk and uncertainty.

Laziness is built deep into our nature.

Odd as it may seem, I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me.

Some achieve a reputation for great successes when in fact all they have done is take chances that reasonable people wouldn't take.