Sublime places repeat in grand terms a lesson that ordinary life typically teaches viciously: that the universe is mightier than we are, that we are frail and temporary and have no alternative but to accept limitations on our will; that we must bow to necessities greater than ourselves.

The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.

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.

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?

Writing a book has about it some of the anxiety of telling a joke and having to wait several years to know whether or not it was funny.

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

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