Our minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied, voices that may drown out the faint sounds emitted by our souls and distract us from the careful, arduous task of accurately naming our priorities.

If one felt successful, there'd be so little incentive to be successful.

Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books that were written because authors couldn't find anyone to talk to.

The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well.

Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.

Status anxiety definitely exists at a political level. Many Iraqis were annoyed with the US essentially for reasons of status: for not showing them respect, for humiliating them.

At the heart of every frustration lies a basic structure: the collision of a wish with an unyielding reality.