People who go on to be writers are those who can forgive themselves the horror of the first draft.

as the determinants of high status keep shifting, so, too, naturally, will the triggers of status anxiety be altered.

We are continuously challenged to discover new works of culture—and, in the process, we don’t allow any one of them to assume a weight in our minds.

An argument in a couple: 2 people attempting to introduce each other to important truths - by panicked shouting.

what we call a home is merely any place that succeeds in making more consistenly available to us the important truths which the wider world ignores, or which our distracted and irresolute selves have trouble holding onto." (p123) Architecture of Happiness

Bad architecture is in the end as much a failure of psychology as of design. It is an example expressed through materials of the same tendencies which in other domains will lead us to marry the wrong people, choose inappropriate jobs and book unsuccessful holidays: the tendency not to understand who we are and what will satisfy us.

I went to church and couldn't swallow it. The music was nice but I don't belong there.