We keep a special place in our hearts for people who refuse to be impressed by us..

Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as 'doing nothing'..

Most good thinking has its origin in fear..

In reality, the likelihood of reaching the pinnacle of capitalist society today is only marginally better than were the chances of being accepted int….

It is not just nature that defies us. Human life is as overwhelming... If we spend time in it [the vast spaces of nature], they may help us to accept….

I was foreign and Jewish, with a funny name, and was very small and hated sport, a real problem at an English prep school. So the way to get round it….

Politics is so difficult, it's generally only people who aren't quite up to the task who feel convinced they are..

The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other's smartphone..

If it is true that love is the pursuit in another of qualities we lack in ourselves, then in our love of someone from another culture, one ambition m….

Unhappiness can stem from having only one perspective to play with..

How generous was it to offer gifts to people one knew would never accept them?.

The more closely we analyze what we consider 'sexy,' the more clearly we will understand that eroticism is the feeling of excitement we experience at….

Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one's own ambitions..

It was no longer her absence that wounded me, but my growing indifference to it. Forgetting, however calming, was also a reminder of infidelity to wh….

Despite the best efforts of critics and the hopes of authors, our tastes in books are probably as inherent & unbudgeable as those in food..

Mental health: having enough safe places in your mind for your thoughts to settle..

What kills us isn't one big thing, but thousands of tiny obligations we can't turn down for fear of disappointing others..

It's hard loving those who don't much like themselves: "If you're so great, why would you think I'm so great..

One wants never to give up this crystalline perspective. One wants to keep counterpositioning home with what one knows of alternative realities, as t….

It is the most ambitious and driven among us who are the most sorely in need of having our reckless hopes dampened through immersive dousings in the ….

Anxiety is the handmaiden of contemporary ambition..