Ray Bradbury: "We have everything..."

"We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren't happy. Something's missing... It would be funny if it were not serious."

- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Tom Stoppard: "Happiness is equilibrium..."

"Happiness is equilibrium. Shift your weight."

- Tom Stoppard from his play The Real Thing (advice from a father to his daughter)

Jan-Philipp Sendker: "Life... is a gift..."

"Life... is a gift full of riddles in which suffering and happiness are inextricably intertwined. Any attempt to have one without the other was simply bound to fail."

—Jan-Philipp Sendker, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

Jan Karon: "I shall give you..."

"I shall give you as much love and affection and happiness as I am capable of giving. Which, I believe... is quite a lot."

—Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

Alan W. Watts: "Had we never known..."

"Had we never known joy, it would be impossible to identify sorrow."

—Alan W. Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

Elizabeth Gilbert: "She had dared to..."

"She had dared to ask for happiness, and she had dared to expect that happiness out of her marriage. You can't possibly ask for more than that."

—Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed

Rudolf Dreikurs: "Genuine happiness is not..."

"Genuine happiness is not dependent upon the attention of others but arises from within oneself as a result of self-sufficiency."

—Rudolf Dreikurs, Children: The Challenge (p41)

Laura Munson: "Maybe happiness is merely..."

"Maybe happiness is merely a by-product of the greater state of being free. I think it's commonly referred to as 'peace'. That's what I want. I want peace."

—Laura Munson, This Is Not The Story You Think It Is

Laura Munson: "It's fascinating to me..."

"It's fascinating to me how this pattern tends to repeat itself: just when you get strong, happy, and choose to powerfully fulfill yourself, that's when the shit hits the fan. (Be careful when you change the game. The world might not want to see you so happy.)"

—Laura Munson, This Is Not The Story You Think It Is

Katherine Rosman: "To open heart: Ignore..."

"To open heart: Ignore what is irrelevant to who you are. Choose beliefs that align with how you want to feel and what you want to create."

—Katherine Rosman, If You Knew Suzy

Nujood Ali: "Without saying a word..."

"Without saying a word, we both know that at this moment we are insanely happy."

—Nujood Ali, with Delphine Minoui, I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced

Laura Munson, "You might think all..."

"You might think all this would find me in a place of intense pain. panic, even. State of emergency. But I am choosing something else.  I am choosing not to suffer."


—Laura Munson, This Is Not The Story You Think It Is

Elizabeth Gilbert: "Happiness is the consequence..."

"Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lazy about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it."

—Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love