Over the years I have collected so many books that, in aggregate, they can fairly be called a library.I don't know what percentage of them I have read. Increasingly I wonder how many of them I ever will read. This has done nothing to dampen my pleasure in acquiring more books.

Children discover and verify their theories in quite the same way that scientists do: through experimentation. They manipulate the world and discover regularities of causation from those manipulations. Why do they do it? The discovery of regularities comes with a pleasurable burst of insight, which all of us, but especially children and scientists, continuously long for like bonbons or opium.

If my belief in the God-force-principle-thing had faltered from time to time, it was completely reaffirmed that morning when I considered how completely brilliant a creation was fermentation. From decay came a pleasure sublime enough to keep decay at bay. Only for a few minutes, perhaps, but some minutes are like no others.

Cruelty links all three primitives [pleasure, pain, and desire]: Spinoza defines it as the desire to inflict pain on someone we love or pity. Financial speaking, cruelty is analogous to a convertible bond whose debt and equity depend on three economic underliers: the stock price, the level of interest rates, and the credit worthiness of the company's debt.

For many years I enjoyed the pleasure of cruising on my yacht all summer long and these were my best holidays. In mid-May, we'd start in St Tropez. I'd collect my bikinis from my home there and then we'd go up to Cannes for the Film Festival, on to Monte Carlo for the Grand Prix and then to Italy.

“Glasgow is just a great old friend. He's always a pleasure and he certainly doesn't owe me anything. I thought he gave me everything he had today. When he stops jumping well he'll be retired but as long as he feels as good as he did today, he'll keep jumping.”

“Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.”

“Barbara and I have been active in the art world for many years, and we believe it is important to support learning in the arts. Additionally, we are avid collectors and have lent and donated many paintings and sculptures to museums. Personally, with the exception of my family, there is nothing that gives me more pleasure than art. It's my true passion.”

In today's world, it is tempting to follow suit and artificially numb the emotions you don't want while inducing the ones that you do want. The problem is that pushing pleasure into your veins will not get you out of quicksand, nor will blocking pain bring you relief. The solutions do not lie in the world of emotions, but rather in the world of thoughts.

Charlee has my arm. She has my arm—my arm that’s rigid from pleasure, from her touch—in her little fingers. She holds my other one, too and she’s right there, that sweet candy perfume stripping the rest of the strength from my body, and it escapes in a soft, breathy sigh.