Daughter of the Nine Moons

This may be the fundamental problem with caring a lot about what others think: It can put you on the established path -- the my-isn't-that-impressive path -- and keep you there for a long time. Maybe it stops you from swerving, from ever even considering a swerve, because what you risk losing in terms of other people's high regard can feel too costly.

It is virtually impossible to make comparisons of levels of happiness, especially across long periods of time. But if I had been asked to choose the happiest day of my life, I would have nominated, without hesitation, the first day I spent at the American Museum of National History in New York when I traveled there for a conference during my PhD studies. The second-best day was the second day there, and the third-best day the third day there.

Gene and Claudia tried for a while to assist me with the Wife Problem. Unfortunately, their approach was based on the traditional dating paradigm, which I had previously abandoned on the basis that the probability of success did not justify the effort and negative experiences.

Feel! Feel, feel, feel! Feelings were disrupting my sense of well-being.

Throughout my life I have been criticised for a perceived lack of emotion, as if this were some absolute fault. Interactions with psychiatrists and psychologists - even including Claudia - start from the premise that I should be more 'in touch' with my emotions. What they really mean is that I should give in to them. I am perfectly happy to detect, recognise and analyse emotions. This is a useful skill and I would like to be better at it, Occasionally an emotion can be enjoyed - the gratitude I felt for my sister who visited me even during the bad times, the primitive feeling of well-being after a glass of wine - but we need to be vigilant that emotions do not cripple us.

Why do people value others’ time so little? Now we would have the inevitable small talk. I could have spent fifteen minutes at home practicing aikido.

I diagnosed brain overload and set up a spreadsheet to analyse the situation.

“You want a beer?” she said. A beer! At 3:01 a.m. Ridiculous. “Yes, please.”

Nothing would change the fault in my brain that made me unacceptable.

Habitual earliness is cumulatively a major waste of time.

If I'm going to be judged, I want to be judged by someone I respect.

"Wold you like something to eat?" asked Twoflower. He began to rummage through the bundle that he had tied to the rail, out of the damp. "Don't you understand?" snarled Rincewind. "We are going over the Edge, godsdammit!" "Can't we do anything about it?" "No!" "Then I can't see the sense in panicking," said Twoflower calmly.