Anxiety is the handmaiden of contemporary ambition.

One of love's greatest drawbacks is that, for a while at least, it is in danger of making us happy.

We used to build temples, and museums are about as close as secular society dares to go in facing up to the idea that a good building can change your life (and a bad one ruin it).

Good sex isn't just fun, it keeps us sane and happy. Having sex with someone makes us feel wanted, alive and potent.

What I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but that we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas and make sure that we own them, that we're truly the authors of our own ambitions. Because it's bad enough not getting what you want, but it's even worse to have an idea of what it is you want and find out at the end of the journey that it isn't, in fact, what you wanted all along.

The inability to live in the present lies in the fear of leaving the sheltered position of anticipation or memory, and so of admitting that this is the only life that one is ever likely (heavenly intervention aside) to live.

The study of maps and the perusal of travel books aroused in me a secret fascination that was at times almost irresistible.