The genius of religions is that they structure the inner life.

As adults, we try to develop the character traits that would have rescued our parents.

The largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness".

What is fascinating about marriage is why anyone wants to get married.

We depend on our surroundings obliquely to embody the moods and ideas we respect and then to remind us of them. We look to our buildings to hold us, like a kind of psychological mould, to a helpful vision of ourselves. We arrange around us material forms which communicate to us what we need — but are at constant risk of forgetting what we need — within. We turn to wallpaper, benches, paintings and streets to staunch the disappearance of our true selves.

Writing a book has about it some of the anxiety of telling a joke and having to wait several years to know whether or not it was funny.

If one felt successful, there'd be so little incentive to be successful.