Maybe happiness is this: not feeling that you should be elsewhere, doing something else, being someone else.

..there is more to life than just pleasure. We want to achieve our happiness and not just experience it.

where happiness and happily ever-after doesn't begin at size 0 and end at size 6 and where there are possibilities for love and happiness and professional success and great friends and a wonderful life even if you don't look like one of those girls in the magazines.

Places of genius challenge us. They are difficult. They do not earn their place in history with ethnic restaurants or street festivals, but by provoking us, making demands of us. Crazy, unrealistic, beautiful demands.

We are more willing to offend someone with whom we have weak ties, and a willingness to offend is an important part of creativity. Strong ties make us feel good, make us feel that we belong, but they also constrict our worldview.

Geniuses are always marginalized to one degree or another. Someone wholly invested in the status quo is unlikely to disrupt it.