“Money. The trickiest substance in life--as it's the way we keep score, measure our worth, and think we can control our destinies. Money: the essential lie.”

“We all end up ruing everything. It's the nature of this thing we call 'our condition.' Could, but didn't...Wanted to, but stopped myself...All the damn statements of regret we can never dodge.”

“Discipline is all about the imposition of control-the belief that, by following a precise regime and avoiding distractions, you can somehow keep the disorder of life at bay.”

“We all talk about how much we hate lies. Yet we prefer, so often, to be lied to....because it allows us to dodge all those painful truths we'd rather not hear.”

“We can never change the story that made us what we are. It's a story accumulated by the manifold complexities-its capacity for astonishment and horror, for sanguinity and hopelessness, for pellucid light and the most profound darkness. We are what happened to us. And we carry everywhere all that has shaped us-all that we lacked, all that we wanted but never got; all that we got but never wanted; all that was found and lost.”

“We can rarely tell others what we really think about them--not just because it would so wound them, but also because it would so wound ourselves.”

“We all crave latitude in life, yet simultaneously dig ourselves deeper into domestic entrapment. We may dream of traveling light but accumulate as much as we can to keep us burdened and rooted to one spot. And we have no one to blame but ourselves. Because-though we all muse on the theme of escape-we stil find the notion of responsibility irresistible. The career, the house, the dependents, the debt-it grounds us. Provides us with a necessary security, a reason to get upin the morning. It narrows choice and ergo, gives us certainty. And though just about every man I know rails against being so cul-de-saced by domesic burden, we all embrace it. Embrace it with a vengeance.”