I'm not stupid!" In Bean's experience, that was a sentence never uttered except to prove its own inaccuracy.

Your ego-depletion seems problematically difficult to assuage.

The only people who ever prize purity of ignorance are those who profit from a monopoly on knowledge.

Humanity does not ask to be happy.It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf. Survival first, and then happiness as we can manage it... Take what pleasure you can in the interstices of your work, , but your work is first, learning first, winning is everything because without it there is nothing.

All is going well, very well, I couldn’t ask for anything better— So why do I hate my life?

Does it help if we're so strong-willed, stubborn, ambitious, and selfish that we always overcome everything in our way no matter what?" asked Wang-mu. "I think those are the pertinent virtues, yes," said Peter. "Then let's do it. That's us in spades.

I'll have that someday, thought Peter. Someone who'll kiss me good-bye at the door. Or maybe just someone to put a blindfold over my head before they shoot me. Depending on how things turn out.