Relationships make me happy.

I used to be very disciplined about only buying three books ahead of what I was reading, but my husband corrupted me, and now I'm dozens ahead of myself!

Happiness is hard because it's very subjective. I know the people that seem happiest to me, but whether they are actually - what they're really like inside is really hard to say.

Happiness can seem like an abstract, transcendent notion, but in fact, I found that getting enough sleep (very important!!), getting exercise, not letting myself get too hungry, not letting myself get too cold (I'm a person who is always cold), made a big difference. Partly because I felt happier, partly because feeling physically comfortable makes it easier to keep other difficult happiness-boosting resolutions like biting my tongue.

Studies show that aggressively expressing anger doesn't relieve anger but amplifies it. On the other hand, not expressing anger often allows it to disappear without leaving ugly traces.

One of the things that you see ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists agree on is that strong relationships are a key to happiness, maybe the key to happiness. People who have more strong relationships in their lives just feel happier.

When I thought about why I was sometimes reluctant to push myself, I realized that it was because I was afraid of failure - but in order to have more success, I needed to be willing to accept more failure.