It's far less important to me to be liked these days than to be understood.

Children live in the same world we do. To kid ourselves that we can shelter them from it isn't just naive it's a vanity.

The secret is that there is no secret.

Change is like that: you are no longer where you were; you are not yet where you will get; you are nowhere exactly.

Perhaps I overemphasized the value of keeping busy.... I liked to imagine that I was incapable of doing nothing for afternoons myself, but maybe what disturbed me was that I was capable of it. I feared this was a knack one could get the hang of rather readily, and it was therefore now lurking in my house waiting for me to pick it up like a winter flu.

We are not attracted to people because they are virtuous. In fact, there's something a little creepy about people who are too good. There is a big draw to people who are successful at breaking the rules. That means we end up admiring a lot of people that we think we shouldn't.

Notoriety is cheap. It's just easier to get noticed by doing something bad.