Most of us become so rigidly fixed in the ruts carved out by genetic programming and social conditioning that we ignore the options of choosing any other course of action. Living exclusively by genetic and social instructions is fine as long as everything goes well. But the moment bioloical or social goals are frustrated- which in the long run is inevitable - a person must formulate new goals, and create a new flow activity for himself, or else he will always waste his energies in inner turmoil.

The mood state Americans are in, on average, when watching television is mildly depressed.

The task is to learn how to enjoy everyday life without diminishing other people's chances to enjoy theirs.

It is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, that we learn to become more than what we were.

the self expands through acts of self forgetfulness.

The foremost reason that happiness is so hard to achieve is that the universe was not designed with the comfort of human beings in mind...It seems that every time a pressing danger is avoided a new and more sophisticated threat appears on the horizon...Whether we are happy depends on inner harmony, not on the controls we are able to exert over the great forces of the universe

Optimal experience is that rare occasion when we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a landmark in memory for what life should be like.