You have to be quite heavily invested in someone to do them the honour of telling them you're annoyed with them.

Much of the really serious trouble in the world gets going with a sense of humiliation.

Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.

as the determinants of high status keep shifting, so, too, naturally, will the triggers of status anxiety be altered.

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.

People who go on to be writers are those who can forgive themselves the horror of the first draft.

We may not agree with what religions are trying to teach us, but we can admire the institutional way in which they're doing it.