Ten minutes of a smartphone in front of your nose is about the equivalent of an hour long walk in bright daylight. Imagine going for an hour long walk in bright daylight and then thinking, "Now I'll get some sleep." It ain't going to happen.

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

One of the problems with expertise is that people have it in some domains and not in others.

Below an income of ... $60,000 a year, people are unhappy, and they get progressively unhappier the poorer they get. Above that, we get an absolutely flat line. ... Money does not buy you experiential happiness, but lack of money certainly buys you misery.

It was always assumed I would be a professor. I grew up thinking it.

There is a huge wave of interest in happiness among researchers. There is a lot of happiness coaching. Everybody would like to make people happier.

One thing we have lost, that we had in the past, is a sense of progress, that things are getting better. There is a sense of volatility, but not of progress.