If we can accept as true that life circumstances are not the keys to happiness, we'll be greatly empowered to pursue happiness for ourselves.

It turns out that the process of working toward a goal, participating in a valued and challenging activity, is as important to well-being as its attainment.

If you're not happy today, then you won't be happy tomorrow unless you take things into your own hands and take action.

Happiness is not out there for us to find. The reason that it's not out there is that it's inside us.

...The more a person is inclined to gratitude, the less likely he or she is to be depressed, anxious, lonely, envious, or neurotic.

In a nutshell, the fountain of happiness can be found in how you behave, what you think, and what goals you set every day of your life.

Find a happy person, and you will find a project.

Exercise may very well be the most effective instant happiness booster of all activities.

The practice of gratitude is incompatible with negative emotions and may actually diminish or deter such feelings as anger, bitterness, and greed.

I prefer to think of the creation or construction of happiness, because research shows that it's in our power to fashion it for ourselves.

Every day you have to renew your commitment. Some of the strategies should become habitual over time and not a huge effort.

absencelooks like a lake bed flooded with skysounds like cotton howlingtastes like tear-stained pillowssmells like churning bile and burnt hairfeels like screaming agony, my heart dying and dying

The thing I always wanted to say is that surviving abuse sucks. But it's also a choose-your-own-adventure story.

Parties sickened me. I hated the game-playing, the dirty play, the flirting, the amateurs drunks, the bores.

At 14 you are still in most respects a dependent youth, in some respects a child. At 24 you are an adult. In between, extraordinary turbulences take place.

The railroad originally was as completely dissociated from steam propulsion as was the ship

You don't shoot a dog when it is already dead.

Cowardice is the greatest sin.

I asked the waiter, 'Is this milk fresh?' He said, 'Lady, three hours ago it was grass.'

I don't think about what camera I should use that much. I just pick up the one that looks nicest on the day.