Children's literature is one of my joys, and it's also my mental comfort food.
I love cunning containers as much as anyone, but I've found that if I get rid of everything I don't need, I often don't need a container at all.
You can love someone but not want to keep a gift from that person. It's okay to pass an item along to someone who will appreciate it more.
Don't keep excessive amounts of anything. Those glass vases that come from florists. Those ketchup packets that come with take-out food. A house with two adults probably doesn't need fifteen mismatched souvenir coffee cups.
I get such a buzz out of cleaning closets.
They say that people teach what they need to learn. By adopting the role of happiness teacher, if only for myself, I was trying to find the method to conquer my particular faults and limitations.
The biggest waste of time is to do well something that we need not do at all.
When we don't get any treats, we feel depleted, resentful, and angry, and we feel justified in self-indulgence. We start to crave comfort - and grab that comfort wherever we can, even if it means breaking good habits.
I embrace treats, but I'm also very wary of treats. Treats help us feel energized, appreciated, and enthusiastic - but very often, the things we choose as 'treats' aren't good for us. The pleasure lasts a minute, but then feelings of guilt, loss of control, and other negative consequences just deepen the lousiness of the day.
For one person, organized files might be a crucial tool for creativity; another person finds inspiration in random juxtapositions.
When you're doing a job that benefits other people, it's easy to assume that they feel conscious of the fact that you're doing this work - that they should feel grateful, and that they should and do feel guilty about not helping you.
If you want someone else to do a task, don't do it yourself.
I love finding - or inventing - ways to categorize people.
Now, the term 'friend' is a little loose. People mock the 'friending' on social media, and say, 'Gosh, no one could have 300 friends!' Well, there are all kinds of friends. Those kinds of 'friends,' and work friends, and childhood friends, and dear friends, and neighborhood friends, and we-walk-our-dogs-at-the-same-time friends, etc.
'Potato-chip news' is news that's repetitive, requires little effort to absorb, and is consumable in massive quantities: true crime, natural disasters, political punditry, celebrity gossip, sports gossip, or endless photographs of beautiful houses, food, or clothes.
It's so easy to use tired, shopworn figures of speech. I love using long, fancy words but have learned - mostly from writing my biography of Winston Churchill - that short, strong words work better. I am ever-vigilant against the passive and against jargon, both of which are so insidious.
My writing tends to become very dense, so I have to keep some cushion. Sometimes, words that seem superfluous are actually essential for the overall effect.
One thing that makes me very happy is to have a complicated idea and to feel that I've expressed myself clearly. I remember writing the ending to 'Happier at Home.' I wrote the entire book to build to that ending 'now is now,' and what I had to say was very abstract, and yet I felt satisfied that I managed to say what I wanted to say.
Keep in mind that to avoid loneliness, many people need both a social circle and an intimate attachment. Having just one of two may still leave you feeling lonely.
Whenever I start a new book, I think, 'This is the most interesting subject of all time. It's sad, I'll never enjoy writing another book as much as I enjoy this one.' Every time, I'm convinced. And then I change my mind when I start the next book.
