Our sadness won’t be of the searing kind but more like a blend of joy and melancholy: joy at the perfection we see before us, melancholy at an awareness of how seldom we are sufficiently blessed to encounter anything of its kind. The flawless object throws into perspective the mediocrity that surrounds it. We are reminded of the way we would wish things always to be and of how incomplete our lives remain.

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

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

There is real danger of a disconnect between what's on your business card and who you are deep inside, and it's not a disconnect that the world is ready to be patient with.

Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.

The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn't call.

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.