Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuous anxiety and gloom. - Alain de Botton

After Carol had left, as Symons threw away a pile of used tissues and rearranged the cushions on the couch, he remarked that the most common and unhelpful illusion plaguing those who came to see him [as a career counselor] was the idea that they ought somehow, in the normal course of events, to have intuited — long before they had finished their degrees, started families, bought houses and risen to the top of law firms — what they should properly be doing with their lives. They were tormented by a residual notion of having through some error or stupidity on their part missed out on their true 'calling.

It isn't normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement.

Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet.