We are sensitized by the books we read. And the more books we read, and the deeper their lessons sink into us, the more pairs of glasses we have. And those glasses enable us to see things we would have otherwise missed.

Those who divorce aren't necessarily the most unhappy, just those neatly able to believe their misery is caused by one other person.

Rather than saying 'I hate mess', it might draw more compassion to say, 'mess terrifies me as a harbinger of catastrophe'.

There is a devilishly direct relationship between the significance of an idea and how nervous we become at the prospect of having to think about it.

The assumption is that life doesn't need to be navigated with lessons. You can just do it intuitively. After all, you only need to achieve autonomy from your parents, find a moderately satisfying job, form a relationship, perhaps raise some children, watch the onset of mortality in your parents' generation and eventually in your own, until one day a fatal illness starts gnawing at your innards and you calmly go to the grave, shut the coffin and are done with the self-evident business of life.

Intuition is unconscious accumulated experience informing judgement in real time.

Most victories are, in the best way, acts of revenge.