People who are cognitively busy are also more likely to make selfish choices, use sexist language, and make superficial judgments in social situations.

We were required to predict a soldier's performance in officer training and in combat, but we did so by evaluating his behavior over one hour in an artificial situation. This was a perfect instance of a general rule that I call WYSIATI, "What you see is all there is." We had made up a story from the little we knew but had no way to allow for what we did not know about the individual's future, which was almost everything that would actually matter. When you know as little as we did, you should not make extreme predictions like "He will be a star."

Optimism is normal, but some fortunate people are more optimistic than the rest of us. If you are genetically endowed with an optimistic bias, you hardly need to be told that you are a lucky person - you already feel fortunate.

Experts don't know exactly where the boundaries of their expertise are.

We can't live in a state of perpetual doubt, so we make up the best story possible and we live as if the story were true.

Individual investors predictably flock to stocks in companies that are in the news.

The premise of this book is that it is easier to recognize other people's mistakes than your own.