However, attention can be moved away from an unwanted focus, primarily by focusing intently on another target.

Odd as it may seem, I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me.

The idea that the future is unpredictable is undermined every day by the ease with which the past is explained.

The world makes much less sense than you think. The coherence comes mostly from the way your mind works.

The premise of this book is that it is easier to recognize other people's mistakes than our own.

The test of learning psychology is whether your understanding of situations you encounter has changed, not whether you have learned a new fact.

Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it.

Many parents have discovered, perhaps with some guilt, that they can read a story to a child while thinking of something else.

Freedom has a cost, which is borne by individuals who make bad choices, and by a society that feels obligated to help them.

Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking of it.

The often-used phrase “pay attention” is apt: you dispose of a limited budget of attention that you can allocate to activities, and if you try to you try to go beyond your budget, you will fail.

And we were kissing like drowning people breathe-- like suddenly we'd discovered something that has never been so sweet before that moment.

Enemies can't break your spirit, only friends can.

People who work hard often work too hard. ... May we learn to honor the hammock, the siesta, the nap and the pause in all its forms.

The individual cannot exist on his/her own and the collectivism should respect freedom of conscience. My struggle is about the freedom of thought.

The English people on the whole are surely the nicest people in the world, and everybody makes everything so easy for everyone else, that there is almost nothing to resist at all.

Beauty is not between a size 0 and a size 8. It's not a number at all.

I felt the first soft glow of intoxication that makes the blood warmer and spreads an illusion of adventure over uncertainty.

There is no trick to writing a believable love story, a heartbreaking scene or real-sounding dialogue. All you need is to tell the truth. It’s always heartbreaking.

Nothing speeds brain atrophy more than being immobilized in the same environment.

If you lived in Sheffield and were called Sebastian, you had to learn to run fast at a very early stage.