“Practice of compassion is ultimately benefit to you. So I usually describe: we are selfish, but be wise selfish rather than foolish selfish.”

Our entire lives are governed by a voice in our heads. This voice is engaged in a ceaseless stream of thinking—most of it negative, repetitive, and self-referential.

The ego is never satisfied. No matter how much stuff we buy, no matter how many arguments we win or delicious meals we consume, the ego never feels complete.

The ego thrives on drama. It keeps our old resentments and grievances alive through compulsive thought.

“When you have one foot in the future and the other in the past, you piss on the present.”

As best I could understand it, the Buddha’s main thesis was that in a world where everything is constantly changing, we suffer because we cling to things that won’t last.

We suffer because we get attached to people and possessions that ultimately evaporate.

The route to true happiness was to achieve a visceral understanding of impermanence, which would take you off the emotional roller coaster and allow you to see your dramas and desires through a wider lens.

This is where the Buddhists diverged quite dramatically from self-help: They had an actual, practical program. It wasn’t expensive gimcrackery. No spendy seminars, no credit cards required. It was totally free.

In a nutshell, mindfulness is the ability to recognize what is happening in your mind right now—anger, jealousy, sadness, the pain of a stubbed toe, whatever—without getting carried away by it.

We can do more than just think; we also have the power simply to be aware of things—without judgment, without the ego. This is not to denigrate thinking, just to say that thinking without awareness can be a harsh master.

Picture the mind like a waterfall, they said: the water is the torrent of thoughts and emotions; mindfulness is the space behind the waterfall.

RAIN. R: recognize A: allow I: investigate N: non-identification

Bingo: respond not react.

Sam once said in his speech to the angry, befuddled atheists, learn how to be happy “before anything happens.” This happiness is self-generated, not contingent on exogenous forces; it’s the opposite of “suffering.”

The real superpower of meditation is not just to manage your ego more mindfully but to see that the ego itself has no actual substance. Close your eyes and look for it, and you won’t find any “self” you can put your finger on.

... ask yourself the following question: ‘Is this useful’?

Our life is the manifestation of our minds.

The pursuit of happiness becomes the source of our unhappiness.

The brain, it turns out, is constantly changing in response to experience. It’s possible to sculpt your brain through meditation just as you build and tone your body through exercise—to grow your gray matter the way doing curls grows your bicep.

The brain, the organ of experience, through which our entire lives are led, can be trained. Happiness is a skill.

Studies showed that the best way to engineer an epiphany was to work hard, focus, research, and think about a problem—and then let go. Do something else.

Mindfulness, I had come to believe, could, in fact, change the world.

This clunky phrase “nonattachment to results” was my long-sought Holy Grail, the middle path, the marriage of “the price of security” and “the wisdom of insecurity.”

1. Don’t Be a Jerk 2. When Necessary, Hide the Zen 3. Meditate 4. The Price of Security Is Insecurity—Until It’s Not Useful 5. Equanimity Is Not the Enemy of Creativity 6. Don’t Force It 7. Humility Prevents Humiliation 8. Go Easy with the Internal Cattle Prod 9. Nonattachment to Results 10. What Matters Most?

Nonattachment to results + self compassion = a supple relentlessness that is hard to match. Push hard, play to win, but don’t assume the fetal position if things don’t go your way.

“Meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It’s about feeling the way you feel.”

Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.

It is not easy for me to digest meat. I waste too much energy in digesting meat, and that's why I get my proteins from other products. I like beans and other legume plants very much. I need a lot of 'live' products such as fruit and vegetables.

There's a lot we can do to improve American's retirement security, but it's wrong to replace the guaranteed benefit that Americans have earned with a guaranteed benefit cut of forty percent or more.

Educate a man and you educate an individual. Educate a woman and you educate a family.

For poetry there exists neither large countries nor small. Its domain is in the heart of all men.

I get really flowery and verbose in my adult books, but I don't think I dumb down my Y.A. It's just cleaner and more snappy. And the adult books have multiple points-of-view. In my Y.A., it's always third person from the main character's perspective.

If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms never never never!

As with the factory, so with the office: in an assembly line, the smaller the piece of work assigned to any single individual, the less skill it requires, and the less likely the possibility that doing it well will lead to doing something more interesting and better paid.

Sports teaches you character, it teaches you to play by the rules, it teaches you to know what it feels like to win and lose-it teaches you about life.

It's 2014, and women are still paid less than men. Does this suggest that a gender pay gap is an unfortunately permanent fixture? Will it still be with us in 50 years? I would predict yes. But by that point, it will be men who will be earning less than women.

The Earth is a beautiful planet. The space station is a great vantage point to observe it and share our planet in pictures. It makes you more of an environmentalist.

I never really address myself to any image anybody has of me. That's like fighting with ghosts.

According to the scientific naturalist version of cosmic history, nature is a permanently closed system of material effects that can never be influenced by something from outside - like God, for example.

The first of many graduations of life. From elementary school to senior school each one holds successes for you to enjoy.

I think comedians see themselves as people among people.

You are the eternal France, I love you.

It isn’t where you come from; it’s where you’re going that counts.

It's good to have a leader, otherwise we argue too much.

Buffalo meat tastes just as delicious as red meat, but it comes much leaner. Because of its leanness, it also cooks more quickly.

I was born and raised a Christian, and I still adhere to those principles.

Posh is a way of living that can often be quite miserly and not about money.

I did a short film called 'Disco' and won an award for Best Supporting Actor at an indie film festival, and that was nice. Hopefully there's lots more to come.