Don't despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don't - surrender to events with hope.

There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed.

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

Blind impatience is equally evident in the fruit section. Our ancestors might have delighted in the occasional handful of berries found on the underside of a bush in late summer, viewing it as a sign of the unexpected munificence of a divine creator, but we became modern when we gave up on awaiting sporadic gifts from above and sought to render any pleasing sensation immediately and repeatedly available.

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

Although I don't believe in God, Bach's music shows me what a love of God must feel like.

Most anger stems from feelings of weakness, sadness and fear: hard to remember when one is at the receiving end of its defiant roar.