People tend to be clueless about prices. Contrary to economic theory, we don't really decide between A and B by consulting our invisible price tags and purchasing the one that yields the higher utility, he says. We make do with guesstimates and a vague recollection of what things are “supposed to cost.”

Your second ducat, like your second million, is never quite as sweet.

Expectation is a statistical fiction, like having 2.5 children.

Shannon's most radical insight was that meaning was irrelevant.

The more improbable the message, the less "compressible" it is, and the more bandwidth it requires. This is Shannon's point: the essence is its improbability.

Samuelson spotted a mistake in Bacheliers work. Bachelier's model had failed to consider that stock prices cannot fall below zero.

Samuelson, however, hedged his personal bets - by putting some of his own money in Berkshire Hathaway.