A great writer picks up on those things that matter. It’s almost like their radar is attuned to the most significant moments. - Alain de Botton

Even if our loved ones have assured us that they'll be busy at work, even if they told us they hated us for going travelling in the first place, even if they left us last June or died twelve years ago, it is impossible not to experience a shiver of a sense that they may have come along anyway, just to surprise us and make us feel special.

Reading Proust nearly silenced Virginia Woolf. She loved his novel, but loved it rather too much. There wasn’t enough wrong with it — a crushing recognition when one considers Walter Benjamin’s assessment of why people become writers: because they are unable to find a book already written that they are completely happy with.

Of all the things that wisdom provides to help one live one’s entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship.