The brains of humans contain a mechanism that is designed to give priority to bad news.

Nothing in life is quite as important as you think it is while you're thinking about it.

Money does not buy you happiness, but lack of money certainly buys you misery.

Psychologists really aim to be scientists, white-coat stuff, with elaborate statistics, running experiments.

All of us roughly know what memory is. I mean, memory is sort of the storage of the past. It's the storage of our personal experiences. It's a very big deal.

Finally, the illusions of validity and skill are supported by a powerful professional culture. We know that people can maintain an unshakeable faith in any proposition, however absurd, when they are sustained by a community of like-minded believers. Given the professional culture of the financial community, it is not surprising that large numbers of individuals in that world believe themselves to be among the chosen few who can do what they believe others cannot.

When people believe a conclusion is true, they are also very likely to believe arguments that appear to support it, even when these arguments are unsound.