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

We are sensitized by the books we read. And the more books we read, and the deeper their lessons sink into us, the more pairs of glasses we have. And those glasses enable us to see things we would have otherwise missed.

A simple problem of arithmetic: there are far more ambitions than there are grand destinies available.

Without sex, we would be dangerously invulnerable. We might believe we were not ridiculous. We wouldn't know rejection and humiliation so intimately.

There is real danger of a disconnect between what's on your business card and who you are deep inside, and it's not a disconnect that the world is ready to be patient with.

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.

We are presented with an unpleasant choice between either committing to peculiar concepts about immaterial deities or letting go entirely of a host of consoling, subtle or just charming rituals for which we struggle to find equivalents in secular society.