Examining love is like examining a stocking: if you hold it up to the light and stretch it to search for snags, any snags there are may well run and ruin the stocking. In fact, if I may fashion Coudert's law from Heisenberg's principle of indeterminacy, it is this: Love is not only changed by observation; it is changed for the worse.

What nonsense it is, this desire to be without limitations, this wish always to be seen in the most flattering light. We are anxious, not because we think so little of ourselves, but because we think so much of ourselves. We are anxious, not that we may appear in the worst light, but that we may not appear in the best light. Anxiety is born of self-consciousness, and it is alleviated to the exact extent that we can drop consciousness of the self.

The divorced person is like a man with a black patch over one eye: he looks rather dashing but the fact is that he has been through a maiming experience.

I saw one of the absolute truths of this world: each person is worrying about himself; no one is worrying about you. He or she is worrying about whether you like him, not whether he likes you. He is worrying about whether he looks prepossessing, not whether you are dressed correctly. He is worrying about whether he appears poised, not whether you are. He is worrying about whether you think well of him, not whether he thinks well of you. The way to be yourself ... is to forget yourself.

cookbooks, I found, are intended for people with time to cook - and, surprisingly often, for people who already know how to cook.

The unlived life is not worth examining. ... Self-awareness, self-examination, self-consciousness are for the quiet moments. In the arena they are paralyzing. The self must not be held out of the arena until living skills have been learned.

People who are good to each other make each other good.