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

"The best cure for one's bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person."

"The longing for destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life."

"The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn't call."

"Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go."

"There may be significant things to learn about people by looking at what annoys them most."

"There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed."

"It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad, and to lonely service stations that we should drive when there is no one for us to hold or love."

"The finest proof of our loyalty toward one another was our monstrous disloyalties towards everyone else."

"It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things."

"There's a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough."

"Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from."

"We don't really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped ... We suffer, therefore we think."

"Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason."

"The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well."

"Must being in love always mean being in pain?"

"The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to."

"Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough."

"The difference between hope and despair is a different way of telling stories from the same facts."

"The largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness"."

"Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself."

"You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days."

"Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books written because authors couldn't find anyone to talk to."

"A good half of the art of living is resilience."