And I'm convinced that knowing the names of things braces people up.

People don't realize how much they are in the grip of ideas. We live among ideas much more than we live in nature.

There was a disturbance in my heart, a voice that spoke there and said, I want, I want, I want! It happened every afternoon, and when I tried to suppress it it got even stronger.

I don’t actually take much stock in the collapsing culture bit. I’m beginning to see it instead as the conduct of life without input from your soul.

De Tocqueville considered the impulse toward well-being as one of the strongest impulses of a democratic society. He can't be blamed for underestimating the destructive powers generated by this same impulse.

... unless you made your life a turning point, there was no reason for existing.

Myself is thus and so, and will continue thus and so. And why fight it? My balance comes from instability.