We are all more intelligent than we are capable, and awareness of the insanity of love has never saved anyone from the disease.

We should keep a careful diary of our moments of envy: they are our covert guides to what we should try to do next.

We don't really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped ... We suffer, therefore we think.

Let's say you went to Harvard or Oxford or Cambridge, and you said, 'I've come here because I'm in search of morality, guidance and consolation; I want to know how to live,' - they would show you the way to the insane asylum.

It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Acquaintance with grief turns out to be one of the more unusual prerequisites of architectural appreciation. We might, quite aside from all other requirements, need to be a little sad before buildings can properly touch us.

The materialistic view of happiness of our age starkly revealed in our understanding of the word "luxury.

Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.