“Yet Irina had once tucked away, she wasn't sure when or why, that happiness is almost definitionally a condition of which you are not aware at the time. To inhabit your own contentment is to be wholly present, with no orbiting satellite to take clinical readings of the state of the planet. Conventionally, you grow conscious of happiness at the very point that it begins to elude you. When not misused to talk yourself into something - when not a lie - the h-word is a classification applied in retrospect. It is a bracketing assessment, a label only decisively pasted onto an era once it is over.”

“The state or conditions into which you lead your wife will be the state or conditions in which you find yourself. You cannot lead your wife into happiness and not get there yourself.”

“Only by being present can you be happy. Too much attention to the past and the future takes the now away. And once it's gone, you never get it back.”

“It is almost impossible to describe happiness, because at the time it feels entirely natural, as if all the rest of your life has been the aberration; only in retrospect does it swim into focus as the rare and precious thing it is. When it is present, it seems to be eternal, abiding forever, and there is no need to examine it or clutch it. Later, when it has evaporated, you stare in dismay at your empty palm, where only a little of the perfume lingers to prove that once it was there, and now is flown.”

“This is what I think. You can’t have everything at once. Like the pockets in your clothes, there’s a limit to how much we can have at once. There are times when to put something in your pocket, you have to throw something else away. You have to prioritize those decisions by yourself. There are things that you can’t get back once you’ve thrown them away.”

“Why do we choose sadness over happiness, when we are hurting? answer is simple, because every other emotion just feels wrong, depending upon how well you can lie to yourself and convince yourself to feel happy again. But if you want to heal your wounds, Let sadness take its course. It helps you recognize your faults and make peace with your inner self, let it take its time and when the time is right you shall feel happy again, most importantly in control and satisfied.”