Religions are so subtle, so complicated, so intelligent in many ways that they're not fit to be abandoned to the religious alone; they're for all of us.

It seems the only way to write a half decent book is to worry oneself sick on an hourly basis that one is producing a complete disaster.

Status anxiety definitely exists at a political level. Many Iraqis were annoyed with the US essentially for reasons of status: for not showing them respect, for humiliating them.

what we call a home is merely any place that succeeds in making more consistenly available to us the important truths which the wider world ignores, or which our distracted and irresolute selves have trouble holding onto." (p123) Architecture of Happiness

Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.

The greatest difficulty of Travel is that one is forced to take oneself along.

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