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

The mind does most of its best thinking when we aren't there. The answers are there in the morning.

I know a lot about writing, but I don't know much about how other industries work. I've tried to use my naivety to my advantage.

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.

It seems, in fact, that the more advanced a society is, the greater will be its interest in ruined things, for it will see in them a redemptively sobering reminder of the fragility of its own achievements. Ruins pose a direct challenge to our concern with power and rank, with bustle and fame. They puncture the inflated folly of our exhaustive and frenetic pursuit of wealth.

Instead of bringing back 1600 plants, we might return from our journeys with a collection of small unfêted but life-enhancing thoughts.

The best cure for one's bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person.