Why did I hope we would be happy abroad? A change of environment is that traditional fallacy upon which doomed loves, and lungs, rely.

The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.

Remember, someone, somewhere in some corner of this somewhat big world, is out there crying if you’re unhappy and is happy if you are! And you know who that someone is!

As long as one is ruled by illusion, one’s thinking process is also illusory and that is nothing but misery. In Gnanis’ [the enlightened one’s] language, there is no such thing as happiness or unhappiness.

But maybe happiness isn't in the choosing. Maybe it's in the fiction, in the pretending: that wherever we have ended up is where we intended to be all along.

The negation of severe suffering was the nearest approach to happiness I expected to know. Besides, I seemed to hold two lives - the life of thought, and that of reality.

All things, even the deepest sorrow or the most profound happiness are all temporary. Hope is fuel for the soul, without hope, forward motion ceases.

Happy is the soul that has a friend. Happier is the soul that trusts in the truth of the heart of a friend. Happiest is the soul that knows the solemnity of friendship and honours its laws.

I want to feel what I feel. What's mine. Even if it's not happiness, whatever that means. Because you're all you've got.

I am hopeful, though not full of hope, and the only reason I don't believe in happy endings is because I don't believe in endings.