“When does a job feel meaningful? Whenever it allows us to generate delight or reduce suffering in others. Though we are often taught to think of ourselves as inherently selfish, the longing to act ...”

“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 hi...”

“The challenge lies in knowing how to bring this sort of day to a close. His mind has been wound to a pitch of concentration by the interactions of the office. Now there are only silence and the fla...”

“Our exertions generally find no enduring physical correlatives. We are diluted in gigantic intangible collective projects, which leave us wondering what we did last year and, more profoundly, where...”

“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 ...”

“A 'good job' can be both practically attractive while still not good enough to devote your entire life to.”

“I am a person before I am anything else. I never say I am a writer. I never say I am an artist...I am a person who does those things.”

“The point, I decided, wasn't to have the autobiography or even the memories. The point was who I became when I wrote.”

“The willingness to reach inside every part of yourself opens the door to total understanding. You place your entire identity on the line, not just an isolated part. This may sound daunting, but act...”

“So, let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look over not only ourselves, but each other.”

“We are fascinated, all of us, by the implacable otherness of others. And we wish to penetrate by hypothesis, by daydream, by scientific investigation those leaden walls that encase the human spirit...”

“The trick is that as long as you know who you are and what makes you happy, it doesn't matter how others see you.”

“...wanting soul life without the dark, warming intelligence of personal doubt is like expecting an egg without the brooding heat of the mother hen.”

“Because his art is sucha difficult one, the writer is not likely to advance in the worldas visibly as do his neighbors: while his best friends from highschool or college are becoming junior partner...”

“perfection is a form of fear”