I've never been socially outgoing, but I suspect I've gotten more and more ambivalent about making new friends. I'm irritated by how-do-you-do chit-chat, but that's how new relationships usually begin.

Everything is freedom and everything is loneliness. Make your choice and let the rest fall away.

The last introvert in a world of extroverts. Silence: my response to both emptiness and saturation. But silence frightens people. I had to learn how to talk. Out of politeness.

Some caregivers want to reciprocate the care they themselves received as children.

In my experience, staying in a marriage that my ex and I both agreed had all its best moments behind it was epically depressing.

When I was a kid, my mother's parenting style teetered between benign neglect and intense bouts of violence.

When we strike a balance between the challenge of an activity and our skill at performing it, when the rhythm of the work itself feels in sync with our pulse, when we know that what we're doing matters, we can get totally absorbed in our task. That is happiness.