The late British-born philosopher Alan Watts, in one of his wonderful lectures on eastern philosophy, used this analogy: "If I draw a circle, most people, when asked what I have drawn, will say I have drawn a circle or a disc, or a ball. Very few people will say I've drawn a hole in the wall, because most people think of the inside first, rather than thinking of the outside. But actually these two sides go together--you cannot have what is 'in here' unless you have what is out there.' " In other words, where we are is vital to who we are.

The coffeehouse is good for genius, and the Viennese coffeehouse is a classic case. Freud had his favorite coffee shop, and so did Gustav Klimt.

I've spent most of my life trying to think my way to happiness, and my failure to achieve that goal only proves, in my mind, that I am not a good enough thinker. It never occurred to me that the source of my unhappiness is not flawed thinking but thinking itself.

When you drink coffee, you become very focused, and in fact, the key to creative genius is to be defocused.

Part of positive psychology is about being positive, but sometimes laughter and clowns are not appropriate. Some people don't want to be happy, and that's okay. They want meaningful lives, and those are not always the same as happy lives.

Someone like Mozart moves from Salzburg to Vienna, where all of the sudden he finds this musical city that is not only asking for music, it's demanding music of him.

A mystery is not a puzzle waiting to be solved, but rather something for which there is no human solution. Mystery's offspring is not frustration but awe, and that sense of awe grows in tandem with knowledge.