My longing to improve my looks via The Body Shop is being replaced by my longing to improve my looks via Photoshop.

Envy is what makes you, when an acquaintance is lustily telling you that she's dating a Greek god of a guy, ask, 'Which one, Hades?'

Fear looks both ways but still refuses to cross; fear looks twice and still doesn't leap. ... Fear usually arrives late, inevitably leaves early, and ends up never going out of town at all. Fear is the phantom hand on the back of the neck and the sound of a door opening downstairs when no one is coming home. ... Fear grows poor because it watches others gain wealth but cannot enter the fray; fear grows sick because it eats away at heath even as it fears its diminishment; fear grows old watching others live in ways that seem to threaten-but in reality only enhance-life.

Interestingly, anger and lust are also elusive states once they have passed. Trying to recall why you were angry about something when you've calmed down is like trying to remember why you were in love with someone who no longer attracts you: the initial impulse triggering the emotion is impossible to recapture.

I have an intimate relationship with books. After all, I take them with me into the bathtub-not an invitation I offer lightly.

We should remind ourselves that laughing together is as close as you can get to another person without touching, and sometimes it represents a closer tie than touching ever could.

The search for truth can be compared to a cat chasing her tail: frantic in her pursuit, her quarry nevetheless eludes her; despite the fact that all the world can see it's right there, it remains just beyond her reach. It cannot be possessed because, paradoxically, it is already part of her.