Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go.

We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us.

Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writers.

Because the rhythm of conversation makes no allowance for dead periods, because the presence of others calls for continuous responses, we are left to regret the inanity of what we say, and the missed opportunity of what we do not.

In the works of Lucretius, we find two reasons why we shouldn't worry about death. If you have had a successful life, Lucretius tell us, there's no reason to mind its end. And, if you haven't had a good time, "Why do you seek to add more years, which would also pass but ill?"

The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other's smartphone.

Life seems to be a process of replacing one anxiety with another and substituting one desire for another--which is not to say that we should never strive to overcome any of our anxieties or fulfil any of our desires, but rather to suggest that we should perhaps build into our strivings an awareness of the way our goals promise us a respite and a resolution that they cannot, by definition, deliver.