We know that the French are very different from the Americans in their satisfaction with life. They're much less satisfied. Americans are pretty high up there, while the French are quite low - the world champions in life satisfaction are actually the Danes.

I'm not a great believer in self-help.

After a crisis we tell ourselves we understand why it happened and maintain the illusion that the world is understandable. In fact, we should accept the world is incomprehensible much of the time.

I don't try to be clever at all. The idea that I could see what no one else can is an illusion.

Many ideas happen to us. We have intuition, we have feeling, we have emotion, all of that happens, we don't decide to do it. We don't control it.

Alternative descriptions of the same reality evoke different emotions and different associations.

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