Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are.

One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.

A dominant impulse on encountering beauty is to wish to hold on to it, to possess it and give it weight in one’s life. There is an urge to say, ‘I was here, I saw this and it mattered to me.

One kind of good book should leave you asking: how did the author know that about me?

Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.

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

The only way to be happy is to realise how much depends on how you look at things