All history and art are against us, but we still expect happiness in love.
Thrift is an attractive idea until you get down to specifics.
People invent gods to explain their suffering.
Self-realization is a comedown from salvation, but still gives us something to hope for.
Neat trick: to be roused to ambition and reconciled to one's mediocrity at the same time.
After sixty, the self-questioning of middle age is obsolete.