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There is something in each of us that wants us to be unhappy. It creates in our imaginations problems that don't exist - quite often causing them to be true. It exaggerates problems that are already there. It reinforces low self-esteem and lack of respect for others. It destroys pride in workmanship, order, and cleanliness. It turns meetings into Confrontations, expectations into Dread, opportunities into Danger, stepping stones into Stumbling Blocks. It can be seen at work in grimaces and frowns, which pull the muscles of the face forward and down, speeding the aging process. It contaminates the mind behind the face with its negative energy and spreads outward, like a disease. And then it comes back, projected and reflected by other unhappy minds and faces. And on it goes.

In reality, heroes are heroic because they, despite their weaknesses - and sometimes because of them - do great things. If they were perfect, they wouldn't be here in earth's classroom.

History is of two kinds—there is the official history taught in schools, a lying compilation ad usum delphini; and there is the secret history which deals with the real causes of events—a scandalous chronicle.

When a stream comes to some stones in its path, it doesn't struggle to remove them, or fight against them, or think about them. It just goes around them. And as it does, it sings. Water responds to What's There with effortless action.

What can be just as hard to see as problems-in-the-making is that a good many "problems" aren't really problems to begin with. People who don't see situations for what they are often struggle against difficulties that aren't there and create difficulties in the process. Or turn small difficulties into large ones.

Our curse as humans is that we are trapped in time; our curse is that we are forced to interpret life as a series of events — a story — and when we can’t figure out what our particular story is, we feel lost somehow.

Doug's Law: "You can have information or you can have a life, but you can't have both."

We have to count. I want to be part of history. I want a Wikipedia page. I want Google hits. I don’t want to be just a living organism that comes and goes and leaves no trace on this planet.

Life need not be a story, but it does need to be an adventure.

That's the thing about your destiny: how are you supposed to know it when it arrives? How are you supposed to recognise it from the random life?

Fame without the money to insulate you from it is one of the most wretched human conditions possible. (p. 80)

It turns out that only twenty percent of human beings have a sense of irony — which means that eighty percent of the world takes everything at face value. I can’t imagine anything worse than that. Okay, maybe I can, but imagine reading the morning newspaper and believing it all to be true on some level.