In essence, the optimistic style involves taking credit for successes but little blame for failures.

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

... sometimes when you are asked a question that is difficult, the mind doesn't stay silent if it doesn't have the answer. The mind produces something, and what it produces very characteristically is the answer to an easier but related question.

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.

Acquisition of skills requires a regular environment, an adequate opportunity to practice, and rapid and unequivocal feedback about the correctness of thoughts and actions.

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.

In a rising market, enough of your bad ideas will pay off so that you'll never learn that you should have fewer ideas.