“Independence is the luxury of all those people who are too confident, and busy, and popular, and attractive to be just plain old lonely. And make no mistake, lonely is absolutely the worst thing to be. Tell someone that you've got a drink problem, or an eating disorder, or your dad died when you were a kid even, and you can almost see their eyes light up with the sheer fascinating drama and pathos of it all, because you've got an issue, something for them to get involved in, to talk about and analyse and discuss and maybe even cure. But tell someone you’re lonely and of course they’ll seem sympathetic, but look very carefully and you'll see one hand snaking behind their back, groping for the door handle, ready to make a run for it, as if loneliness itself were contagious. Because being lonely is just so banal, so shaming, so plain and dull and ugly.”

“In the information age, the barriers just aren’t there,” he said. “The barriers are self-imposed. If you want to set off and go develop some grand new thing, you don’t need millions of dollars of capitalization. You need enough pizza and Diet Coke to stick in your refrigerator, a cheap PC to work on, and the dedication to go through with it. We slept on floors. We waded across rivers.”

“Let things sit. Let things sit on your heart. You will learn of them by their weight.”

“When we let go of our reactions and detach from other people's moods, actions, and words, we take back our power. Instead of reactors, we become self-determined actors in our lives. We take charge of ourselves and decide how we act in that moment and every moment, skyrocketing our self-esteem”

“Life doesn’t stop. And every single second, we’re getting closer to death.”

“Things don't go away. They become you.”

“I could not ask for forgiveness for something I had not done. As scapegoat, I could only bear the fault.”

“Nothing guarantees happiness. I’m not certain happiness should be the goal. Satisfaction, maybe. A sense of purpose. Contribution. Authenticity. Happiness? It’s a lightweight goal. And meanwhile, I suspect that turning away from yourself will guarantee the opposite of happiness.”