“Which comes first, the customer or the designer? Do we make fashion, or does fashion make us? The more we think about the question, the more the answer slips through our fingers.”

“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.”

“Ask Americans “How similar are you to others?” and on average they will answer “Not very.” Ask the same question in reverse—“How similar are others to you?”—and their judgment of similarity increases noticeably. The two answers should be exactly the same because the questions are, in essence, identical, but we manage to delude ourselves, just as we all claim to be above average or wholly unsusceptible to social influence. Time and time again, each one of us assumes that he or she stands out. What is it that makes us believe we’re more unique than everyone else?”

“We do the same thing in our own lives, embracing information that supports what we already prefer or vindicates choices we previously made.After all, it feels better to justify our opinions rather than challenge them, to contemplate only the pros and relegate the cons to the back of our minds. However, if we want to make the most of choice, we have to be willing to make ourselves uncomfortable. The question is, if we are willing, how exactly do we go about fortifying ourselves against these biases?”

“Henri Poincaré, a celebrated French mathematician and philosopher of science, said, “Invention consists in avoiding the constructing of useless combinations and in constructing the useful combinations which are in infinite minority. To invent is to discern, to choose.” I’d like to invert the second sentence and propose a corollary: To choose is to invent. What I mean by this is that choosing is a creative process, one through which we construct our environment, our lives, our selves. If we ask for more and more material for the construction, i.e., more and more choice, we’re likely to end up with a lot of combinations that don’t do much for us or are far more complex than they need to be”

“Why is choice powerful, and where does its power come from? Do we all choose in the same way? What is the relationship between how we choose and who we are? Why are we so often disappointed by our choices, and how do we make the most effective use of the tool of choice?How much control do we have over our everyday choices? How do we choose when our options are practically unlimited? Should we ever let others choose for us, and if yes, who and why?”

“The challenges we face when it comes to identity and choice exist precisely because choosing is not only a private activity but a social one, a negotiation between many moving parts. Choice requires us to think more deeply about who we are, both within ourselves and in the eyes of others.”