Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships or trains.

Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand.

It's hard loving those who don't much like themselves: "If you're so great, why would you think I'm so great.

The best cure for one's bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person.

Never, ever become a writer. It's a nightmare.

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

If cynicism and love lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, do we not sometimes fall in love in order to escape the debilitating cynicism to which we are prone? Is there not in every coup de foudre a certain willful exaggeration of the qualities of the beloved, an exaggeration which distracts us from our habitual pessimism and focuses our energies on someone in whom we can believe in a way we have never believed in ourselves?