The only possible way to begin a book is to tell oneself that its eventual failure is guaranteed — but survivable.

We should keep a careful diary of our moments of envy: they are our covert guides to what we should try to do next.

One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.

It looks like it’s wasting time, but literature is actually the ultimate time-saver - because it gives us access to a range of emotions and events that it would take you years, decades, millennia to try to experience directly. Literature is the greatest reality simulator - a machine that puts you through infinitely more situations than you can ever directly witness.

Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.

To be loved by someone is to realize how much they share the same needs that lie at the heart of our own attraction to them. Albert Camus suggested that we fall in love with people because, from the outside, they look so whole, physically whole and emotionally 'together' - when subjectively we feel dispersed and confused. We would not love if there were no lack within us, but we are offended by the discovery of a similar lack in the other. Expecting to find the answer, we find only the duplicate of our own problem.

For paranoia about 'what other people think' : remember that only some hate, a very few love - and almost all just don't care.