“Socrates, on being insulted in the marketplace, asked by a passerby, “Don’t you worry about being called names?” retorted, “Why? Do you think I should resent it if an ass had kicked me?”

We study biology, physics, movements of glaciers… Where are the classes on envy, feeling wronged, despair, bitterness.

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.

We are presented with an unpleasant choice between either committing to peculiar concepts about immaterial deities or letting go entirely of a host of consoling, subtle or just charming rituals for which we struggle to find equivalents in secular society.

Literature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system-the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side-they make us sympathetic to ideas and feelings that are of deep importance but can’t afford airtime in a commercialized, status-consciou s, and cynical world.

Insomnia is a glamorous term for thoughts you forgot to have in the day.

We should read other people’s books in order to learn what we feel; it is our own thoughts we should be developing, even if it is another writer’s thought that help us to do so.

Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.

The greatest works of art speak to us without knowing us.

One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.

I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day to day take on things. The bare facts of life are utterly terrifying. And yet, one can laugh. Indeed, one has to laugh precisely because of the darkness: the nervous laughter of the trenches.

Every realistic picture represents a choice as to which features of reality should be given prominence; no painting ever captures the whole.

The blunt large questions become connected to smaller, apparently esoteric ones.

Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.

We need a refuge to shore up our states of mind, because so much of the world is opposed to our allegiances. We need our rooms to align us to desirable versions of ourselves and to keep alive the important, evanescent sides of us.

If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest – in all its ardour and paradoxes – than our travels.

Sweetness is the opposite of machismo, which is everywhere-and I really don’t get on with machismo. I’m interested in sensitivity, and weakness, and fear, and anxiety, because I think that, at the end of the day, behind our masks, that’s what we are.

I have no problem with being vetted. What I do have a problem with is being lied about and then putting that as truth.

Positive and powerful: Sometimes people won’t like me, and it’s okay. Positive and powerful: I like me, and that’s all that matters.

To the new ‘Apprentice’ candidates I would say to follow your gut instincts, be yourself and get ready to work hard for the next few months. Oh, and try to have some fun!

Accepting that your imperfections and so-called negative attributes are part of what makes you unique will help you to stop continually trying to be someone or something that you are not.

All my life I’ve been doing. For now, I’m being — being quiet, being grateful.

Advice I would give to anyone trying to find their own personal style: don’t copy anybody, just be yourself, and make your own trends.

It’s about being proud of who you are, being proud of your situation and just being stoked that things are always going to get better or always gonna get worse and that’s such a great thing. Every day is a new surprise.

You’re hated by some, loved by others, but that’s what’s great about being different. If everybody loved you, that means you’re not doing the right thing most of the time.