Charles Duhigg

“America is the Saudi Arabia of coal.”

“Medicare's top officials said in 2006 that they had reduced the number of fraudulent and improper claims paid by the agency, keeping billions of dollars out of the hands of people trying to game the system.”

“Forty percent of all electronics sold are assembled by Foxconn.”

“As the United States has become an older nation, reverse mortgages have grown into a $20-billion-a-year industry, with elderly homeowners taking out more than 132,000 such loans in 2007, an increase of more than 270 percent from two years earlier.”

“Like solo sailors venturing into the Southern Ocean, climbers are seduced by risk. The desire to push to a summit or scale a rock face is so strong that they consciously or subconsciously minimize safety precautions drilled into their brains.”

“Students in school cheat not to get the 'A,' but to avoid the 'C.'”

“There is a woman named Wendy Wood, who did a study when she was at Duke, and she followed around college students to try to figure out how much of their day was decision-making versus how much was habit. And what she found was that about 45 percent of all the behaviors that someone did in a day was habit.”

“People who start habitually exercising tend on average to eat better. They also tend to use their credit cards less and procrastinate less.”

“When we start a new task, or confront an unpleasant chore, we should take a moment to ask ourselves "why.”

“Older Americans are perfect telemarketing customers, analysts say, because they are often at home, rely on delivery services, and are lonely for the companionship that telephone callers provide.”

“The discovery of the habit loop is important because it reveals a basic truth: When a habit emerges, the brain stops fully participating in decision making. It stops working so hard, or diverts focus to other tasks.”

“Between calculated risk and reckless decision-making lies the dividing line between profit and loss.”

“Equipment sellers can pocket more than $2,500 every time they send a powered wheelchair to a patient and bill Medicare.”

“Fraudulent and improper payments have long bedeviled Medicare, a $466 billion program. In particular, payments for durable medical equipment, like power wheelchairs and diabetic test kits, are ripe for fraud.”

“You can't suddenly say, 'I want a brand new habit tomorrow,' and expect it to be easy and effortless.”

“The waste from power plants is essentially what is left over when you burn coal. And as we all know, coal is a relatively dirty mineral.”

“Someone once described Ken Lewis to me as the most competitive person in the history of the United States, including the Union Army.”

“I am going to pick on 'Huffington Post.' A lot of its content is great. They are doing a lot of original content now, but historically, a lot of what they did was aggregation. Newspapers don't want to become that, and yet 'Huffington Post' is incredibly popular. It's incredibly successful.”

“In surveys, many borrowers say reverse mortgages have improved their lives and provided money they needed for retirement.”

“When the mortgage giant Fannie Mae recruited Daniel H. Mudd, he told a friend he wanted to work for an altruistic business. Already a decorated marine and a successful executive, he wanted to be a role model to his four children - just as his father, the television journalist Roger Mudd, had been to him.”