The rules themselves are clear enough, and within everyone’s reach. But many forces, both within ourselves and in the environment, stand in the way. It is a little like trying to lose weight: everyone knows what it takes, everyone wants to do it, yet it is next to impossible for so many.

Often we don't have a good notion of what our talents are, because we have never had a chance to try them out.

There are two main strategies we can try to improve the quality of life. The first is to try making external conditions match our goals. The second is to change how we experience external conditions to make them fit our goals better.

However, a good life consists of more than simply the totality of enjoyable experiences. It must also have a meaningful pattern, a trajectory of growth that results in the development of increasing emotional, cognitive, and social complexity.

The mood state Americans are in, on average, when watching television is mildly depressed.

People without an internalized symbolic system can all too easily become captives of the media.

There will be no good business unless the majority comes to agree that we should demand more from business than large quarterly returns.