“Never start a sentence with the words 'No offense.”

“I wasn't sure how to answer. Could I tell him that one Secret of Adulthood is "Never start a sentence with the words 'No offense'"?”

“I'm not tempted by things I've decided are off-limits, but once I've started something, I have trouble stopping. If I never do something, it requires no self-control for me; if I do something sometimes, it requires enormous self-control.”

“When it comes to fake food, I’m like Samuel Johnson, who remarked, "Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.” In other words, I can give something up altogether, but I can’t indulge occasionally.”

“I am living my real life, this is it. Now is now, and if I waited to be happier, waited to have fun, waited to do the things that I know I ought to do, I might never get the chance.”

“It was time to expect more of myself. Yet as I thought about happiness, I kept running up against paradoxes. I wanted to change myself but accept myself. I wanted to take myself less seriously -- and also more seriously. I wanted to use my time well, but I also wanted to wander, to play, to read at whim. I wanted to think about myself so I could forget myself. I was always on the edge of agitation; I wanted to let go of envy and anxiety about the future, yet keep my energy and ambition.”

“When I thought about why I was sometimes reluctant to push myself, I realized that it was because I was afraid of failure - but in order to have more success, I needed to be willing to accept more failure.”