It's hard loving those who don't much like themselves: "If you're so great, why would you think I'm so great.

Status Anxiety: A worry, so pernicious as to be capable of ruining extended stretches of our lives, that we are in danger of failing to conform to the ideals of success laid down by our society and that we may as a result be stripped of dignity and respect; a worry that we are currently occupying too modest a rung or are about to fall to a lower one.

The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other's smartphone.

There is psychological pleasure in this takeoff, too, for the swiftness of the plane’s ascent is an exemplary symbol of transformation. The display of power can inspire us to imagine analogous, decisive shifts in our own lives, to imagine that we, too, might one day surge above much that now looms over us.” P. 38-39

Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.

There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed.

The problem isn't so much finding good ideas (there is no shortage) as embedding the ones we have into everyday practice.