Nothing more rapidly inclines a person to go into a monastery than reading a book on etiquette. There are so many trivial ways in which it is possible to commit some social sin.

Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level.

No effort is required to define or even attain happiness, but enormous concentration is needed to abandon everything else.

I simply haven't the nerve to imagine a being, a force, a cause which keeps the planets revolving in their orbits and then suddenly stops in order to give me a bicycle with three speeds.

I recommend limiting one's involvement in other people's lives to a pleasantly scant minimum.

I don't think I have a tragic demeanor.

I've always lived in the same way.