Prenatal testing is a complicated decision for many women, forcing us to confront concerns about a disabled child and risks of miscarriage.

The key to good decision making is evaluating the available information - the data - and combining it with your own estimates of pluses and minuses. As an economist, I do this every day.

For many women - myself included - pregnancy brings on tremendous anxiety and confusion, along with the joy.

Good household decision-making often relies on thinking about your household like a firm.

All's fair in love and purchasing.

I think we've moved to thinking of parenting and pregnancy as something in which you should lose yourself.

There is some risk to increase birth defects if you do a lot of outdoor gardening when you are pregnant. That can increase rates of toxoplasmosis.

In short, humans are programmed to get bored.

Talking to women about birth can be polarizing.

As people do a task, they improve at it.

Because economics is all about optimising, doing the best you can with what you have - it's usually the first place you should look for answers if you want to maximise your happiness.

Now the frosty stars are gone: I have watched them one by one Fading on the shores of Dawn. Round and full the glorious sun Walks with level step the spray Through his vestibule of Day.

A Nation's character is typified by its dancers.

I decline to buy repentance at the cost of ten thousand drachmas.

I don't know why British actors are getting big parts in American TV shows. Maybe it's because we're cheap.

Sometimes you have to, as I say, build bridges where you can - but draw lines where you must.

I like being challenged. That's the only way you grow.

God hath prepared a little coronet or special reward (extraordinary and beside the great crown of all faithful souls) for those who have not defiled themselves with women.

Ponder the fact that God has made you a gardener, to root out vice and plant virtue.

Presidential candidates don't chew gum.

The 'value added' for most any company, tiny or enormous, comes from the Quality of Experience provided.