People assume that they perceive reality as it is, that our senses accurately record the outside world. Yet the science suggests that, in important ways, people experience reality not as it is, but as they expect it to be.

How do we regulate our emotions? The answer is surprisingly simple: by thinking about them. The prefrontal cortex allows each of us to contemplate his or her own mind, a talent psychologists call metacognition. We know when we are angry; every emotional state comes with self-awareness attached, so that an individual can try to figure out why he's feeling what he's feeling. If the particular feeling makes no sense—if the amygdala is simply responding to a loss frame, for example—then it can be discounted. The prefrontal cortex can deliberately choose to ignore the emotional brain.

Creativity is not a trait that we inherit in our genes or a blessing bestowed by the angels. It's a skill.

The one reality science cannot reduce is the only reality we will ever know.

Every creative story is different. And every creative story is the same. There was nothing. Now there is something. It's almost like magic.

Creativity is a catchall term for a variety of distinct thought processes.

The imagination is unleashed by constraints. You break out of the box by stepping into shackles.