If success is a habit, it is a hard one to acquire.
Old photograph: amid the set poses of her family, a young girl smiles and raises her hand a little.
Kindness eases everything almost as much as money does.
Literary tradition is full of lies about poverty-the jolly beggar, the poor but happy milkmaid, the wholesome diet of porridge, etc.
Laughing at our friends, we avenge the disappointment they have caused.
People who expect deference resent mere civility.
Self-deception is nature; hypocrisy is art.
Every farewell combines loss and new freedom.
I win on my merits; my opponents win by cheating.
A frog in love would not be enchanted to learn that her beloved had turned into Prince Charming.
Courage, determination, and hard work are all very nice, but not so nice as an oil well in the back yard.
The wisdom of age: don’t stop walking.
The hysterical find too much significance in things. The depressed find too little.
I cling to depression, thinking it a form of truth.
Lying just for the fun of it is either art or pathology.
At retirement, switching from “I must” to “I want” leaves me puzzled and uneasy.
In retirement, only money and symptoms are consequential.
Retirement requires the invention of a new hedonism, not a return to the hedonism of youth.
Do not wait for a reason to be happy.
Our civilization is shifting from science and technology to rhetoric and litigation.