“life has a way of poking holes in your plans, or in the plans others make for you”

“the way we frame information for ourselves or for others can make a big difference in how we see and respond to choice. Every time we encounter new information or reexamine old information, we’re influenced by its presentation. We can use framing to our advantage, but sometimes it has a negative impact on the quality of our decisions.”

“What you see determines how you interpret the world, which in turn influences what you expect of the world and how you expect the story of your life to unfold.”

“In a conversation with the master jazz musician and Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Wynton Marsalis, he told me, “You need to have some restrictions in jazz. Anyone can improvise with no restrictions, but that’s not jazz. Jazz always has some restrictions. Otherwise it might sound like noise.” The ability to improvise, he said, comes from fundamental knowledge, and this knowledge “limits the choices you can make and will make”

“Recommendations and categorization are both useful features to seek out when trying to make a difficult decision, because they can benefit our choices in two ways. They make the decision in question easier by allowing us to borrow the knowledge of experts or crowds, and they also help us to develop our own expertise more rapidly than we would if we chose without assistance. Learning what others consider good and relevant provides us with a general overview of a given field, catalyzing our understanding of it and the development of our preferences within it.”

“our lives are shaped for better or worse, to move forward along largely unmapped terrain. to what extent can you direct your own life when you can see only so far and the weather change quicker than you can say?”

“The saying goes that history repeats itself; personal histories do the same. We can gather the lessons of others’ lives through observation, conversation, and by seeking advice. We can use the automatic system to find out who the happy people are, and the reflective system to evaluate how they got to be that way. Pursuing happiness need not be a lonely endeavor. In fact, throwing in our lot with others may be a very good way of coping with the disappointments of choice.”