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.

I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas.

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

In the oasis complex, the thirsty man images he sees water, palm trees, and shade not because he has evidence for the belief, but because he has a need for it. Desperate needs bring about a hallucination of their solution: thirst hallucinates water, the need for love hallucinates a prince or princess. The oasis complex is never a complete delusion: the man in the desert does see something on the horizon. It is just that the palms have withered, the well is dry, and the place is infected with locusts.

Rather than getting more spoilt with age, as difficulties pile up, epiphanies of gratitude abound.

You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.

Unnatural to expect that learning to be happy should be any easier than, say, learning to play the violin or require any less practice.