“Anyone can be bored or unfulfilled at virtually any job. How one chooses to respond to boredom is key. Most women are resourceful: when faced with boredom, they find a way out. That's an essential skill. Those who don't have it will suffer, to be sure, but that is not society's problem.”

“I can excuse everything but boredom. Boring people don't have to stay that way. ”

“Patience and boredom are closely related. Boredom, a certain kind of boredom, is really impatience. You don't like the way things are, they aren't interesting enough for you, so you deccide- and boredom is a decision-that you are bored.”

“Banality is like boredom: bored people are boring people, people who think that things are banal are themselves banal.Interesting people can find something interesting in all things.”

“You don't have to buy from anyone. You don't have to work at any particular job. You don't have to participate in any given relationship. You can choose.”

“I learned that the world of men as it exists today is a bureaucracy. This is an obvious truth, of course, though it is also one the ignorance of which causes great suffering.“But moreover, I discovered, in the only way that a man ever really learns anything important, the real skill that is required to succeed in a bureaucracy. I mean really succeed: do good, make a difference, serve. I discovered the key. This key is not efficiency, or probity, or insight, or wisdom. It is not political cunning, interpersonal skills, raw IQ, loyalty, vision, or any of the qualities that the bureaucratic world calls virtues, and tests for. The key is a certain capacity that underlies all these qualities, rather the way that an ability to breathe and pump blood underlies all thought and action.“The underlying bureaucratic key is the ability to deal with boredom. To function effectively in an environment that precludes everything vital and human. To breathe, so to speak, without air.“The key is the ability, whether innate or conditioned, to find the other side of the rote, the picayune, the meaningless, the repetitive, the pointlessly complex. To be, in a word, unborable.“It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish.”