We keep a special place in our hearts for people who refuse to be impressed by us.

Her lie was symptomatic of a certain pride she took in mocking the romantic, in being unsentimental, matter-of-fact, stoic; yet at heart she was the oppo site: idealistic, dreamy, giving, and deeply attached to everything she liked verbally to dismiss as "mushy.

Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as 'doing nothing'.

Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them.

Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude - not a punishment for making money.

The more closely we analyze what we consider 'sexy,' the more clearly we will understand that eroticism is the feeling of excitement we experience at finding another human being who shares our values and our sense of the meaning of existence.

So many complaints boil down to the belly ache of the fragile, mortal, ignored ego in a vast and indifferent universe.