I think people want to get married to end their emotional uncertainty. In a way, they want to end powerful feelings, or certainly the negative ones.

The problem isn't so much finding good ideas (there is no shortage) as embedding the ones we have into everyday practice.

One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy.

There is psychological pleasure in this takeoff, too, for the swiftness of the plane’s ascent is an exemplary symbol of transformation. The display of power can inspire us to imagine analogous, decisive shifts in our own lives, to imagine that we, too, might one day surge above much that now looms over us.” P. 38-39

We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us.

Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.

Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one's own ambitions.