“The problem with labels is that they lead to stereotypes and stereotypes lead to generalizations and generalizations lead to assumptions and assumptions lead back to stereotypes. It’s a vicious cycle, and after you go around and around a bunch of times you end up believing that all vegans only eat cabbage and all gay people love musicals.”

“Contribute to the world. Help people. Help one person. Help someone cross the street today. Help someone with directions unless you have a terrible sense of direction. Help someone who is trying to help you. Just help. Make an impact. Show someone you care. Say yes instead of no. Say something nice. Smile. Make eye contact. Hug. Kiss. Get naked.”

“When life gives you lemons….they could really be oranges.”

“My life is perfect even when it’s not.”

“I’m so unfamiliar with the gym, I call it James!”

“I really don’t think I need buns of steel. I’d be happy with buns of cinnamon.”

"When Proust urges us to evaluate the world properly, he repeatedly reminds us of the value of modest scenes."

"The feeling one has no time to get anything done provides the pressure that guarantees one does get some things done."

"It is according to how we are able to answer the question of what we do (normally the first enquiry we will have to field in any new acquaintance) that the quality of our reception is likely to be decided."

"An urgent wish is no guarantor of a sound solution."

"Not everything which happens to us occurs with reference to something about us."

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

"It is surely significant that the adults who feature in children's books are rarely, if ever, Regional Sales Managers or Building Services Engineers."

"…it seems we may best be able to inhabit a place where we are not faced with the additional challenge of having to be there.” (p.23)"

"There is a devilishly direct relationship between the significance of an idea and how nervous we become at the prospect of having to think about it."

"And I wondered, with mounting anxiety, What am I supposed to do here? What am I supposed to think?"

"Beauty is a promise of happiness."

"A world where a majority had imbibed the lessons implicit within tragic art would be one in which the consequences of our failures would necessarily cease to weigh upon us so heavily."

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

"When two people part, it is the one who is not in love who makes the tender speeches."

"It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value."

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

"In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion."

“I’m half-Irish, half-Dutch, and I was born in Belgium. If I was a dog, I’d be in a hell of a mess!”