The expectation of intelligent gossip is a powerful motive for serious self-criticism, more powerful than New Year resolutions to improve one's decision making at work and at home.

Odd as it may seem, I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me.

The idea that the future is unpredictable is undermined every day by the ease with which the past is explained.

The world makes much less sense than you think. The coherence comes mostly from the way your mind works.

The premise of this book is that it is easier to recognize other people's mistakes than our own.

The test of learning psychology is whether your understanding of situations you encounter has changed, not whether you have learned a new fact.

Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it.

Many parents have discovered, perhaps with some guilt, that they can read a story to a child while thinking of something else.

Freedom has a cost, which is borne by individuals who make bad choices, and by a society that feels obligated to help them.

Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking of it.

The often-used phrase “pay attention” is apt: you dispose of a limited budget of attention that you can allocate to activities, and if you try to you try to go beyond your budget, you will fail.

From defilement can come much wisdom

The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach.

And if God were trying to reach out to us, and teach us something about the deepest nature of matter, he might use some drugged-out surfers.

With wisdom fraught; not such as books, but such as practice taught.

All success consists in this: You are doing something for somebody - benefiting humanity - and the feeling of success comes from the consciousness of this.

Nuts don’t come in bunches. Only grapes do.

Authentic spirituality... does not render the self content, it renders it undone.

And let me touch those curving claws of yellow ivory; and grasp the tail that like a monstrous asp coils round your heavy velvet paws.

Apologies are seldom of any use.

There is little place in the political scheme of things for an independent, creative personality, for a fighter. Anyone who takes that role must pay a price.