“Cynics are – beneath it all – only idealists with awkwardly high standards.”

Social media has lots of benefits, but compared to Christianity, it tends to group people by interests. Religion puts you with people who have nothing in common except that you’re human.

We need objects to remind us of the commitments we’ve made. That carpet from Morocco reminds us of the impulsive, freedom-loving side of ourselves we’re in danger of losing touch with. Beautiful furniture gives us something to live up to. All designed objects are propaganda for a way of life.

Good sex isn’t just fun, it keeps us sane and happy. Having sex with someone makes us feel wanted, alive and potent.

What am I supposed to do here? What am I supposed to think?

Our homes do not have to offer us permanent occupancy or store our clothes to merit the name. To speak of home in relation to a building is simply to recognise its harmony with our own prized internal song. Home can be an airport or a library, a garden or a motorway diner.

It wasn’t only fanatics and drunkards who began conversations with strangers in public.

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

The challenge for a human now is to be more interesting to another than his or her smartphone.

I went to church and couldn’t swallow it. The music was nice but I don’t belong there.

To one’s enemies: “I hate myself more than you ever could.

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

Forcing people to eat together is an effective way to promote tolerance.

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

Not everyone is worth listening to.

Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are.

The happiness that may emerge from taking a second look is central to Proust’s therapeutic conception. It reveals the extent to which our dissatisfactions may be the result of failing to look properly at our lives rather than the result of anything inherently deficient about them.

Don’t be an extra in your own movie. Move out of your comfort zone. Don’t be afraid of feeling uncomfortable or awkward. Step-out and make it happen.

And in a world without heroes, as the movie trailer voice-over guy might say, the slightly awkward can be slightly cool.

I was a very awkward high schooler, especially in early high school. I had the middle part with a swoop, all that. It was the late ’90s!

I find standing and posing for photos very awkward.

I avoid clients for whom advertising is only a marginal factor in their marketing mix. They have an awkward tendency to raid their advertising appropriations whenever they need cash for other purposes.

I’m the little half-black, half-Jewish girl who was odd and awkward. I try to be myself.

Step 1 of becoming a mom is leaving that awkward amount of space where I just stare at the beginning of selfie videos.

A camel is a very awkward animal to ride, and it’s very hard to get used to because they’re not very graceful.