Good books put a finger on emotions that are deeply our own – but that we could never have described on our own.
Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.
One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy.
It’s perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living; it’s perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety.
Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself.
People who readily accept the need for a gym will resist that their personalities might need some work too.
Writing isn’t a career choice. It’s self-medication that over time precipitates the madness it was meant to ward off.
The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.
Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships or trains.
Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand.
He did not mean to depress us, rather to free us from expectations which inspire bitterness. It is consoling, when love has let us down, to hear that happiness was never part of the plan.
Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectations of others.
Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough.
Maturity: the confidence to have no opinions on many things.
You have to be quite heavily invested in someone to do them the honour of telling them you’re annoyed with them.
We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.
One kind of good book should leave you asking: how did the author know that about me?
If one felt successful, there’d be so little incentive to be successful.
It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.
Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from.