“Women are very complicated, even if you are a psychiatrist.”

“They were both going to the big country where there were more psychiatrists than anywhere else in the world. We could just as well say more swimming pools, more Nobel prizewinners, more strategic bombers, more apple pies, more computers, more natural parks, more libraries, more cheerleaders, more serial killers, more newspapers, more raccoons, many of many more things, because it was the country of More. No doubt because the people who lived there had left their own countries precisely because they wanted more, especially more freedom.” (Hector and the Search for Happiness) *”

“And since he was seeing more and more people who were unhappy for no apparent reason, he was becoming more and more tired, and even a little happy himself. He began to wonder whether he was in the right profession, whether he was happy with his life, whether he wasn't missing out on something. And then he felt very afraid because he wondered whether these unhappy people were contagious.”

“We fall in love or stay in love with people who are unsuitable or who no longer love us and, conversely, we feel no love towards people who would be very suitable. Love is involuntary, that's the problem. Our personal histories prepare us to be attracted to people who unconsciously evoke emotions from our childhood or adolescence.”

“Adeline was really rather charming, she always had a man in her life, but it never worked out: either they were nice but she didn't find them very exciting; or they were exciting but she didn't find them particularly nice, or they were neither nice nor exciting and she wondered why she was with them at all. She found a way of making the exciting men nicer and that was by leaving them. But then, they weren't exciting anymore either.”

“You must be careful when you ask people whether they’re happy; it’s a question that can upset them a great deal.”

“Lesson no. 5: Sometimes happiness is not knowing the whole story”