After 40 (old age for most of man's history), one should strive to be more or less packed and ready to go were the end call to come.

Anxiety is the handmaiden of contemporary ambition.

Despite its maddeningly vague, inarticulate form, anxiety is almost always trying to tell you something useful and apposite.

There are people who say, 'Oh this guy is quite thick.' I think the reason is that, increasingly, I don't mind being simple in terms of literary expression. Others say, 'No, no, no. He went to Cambridge. He got a good degree. He must be Einstein.'

We each appear to hold within ourselves a range of divergent views as to our native qualities.. And amid such uncertainty, we typically turn to the wider world to settle the question of our significance.. we seem beholden to affections of others to endure ourselves.

One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.

The secular world is full of holes. We have secularized badly.