And the thing about a successful life is that a lot of the time, our ideas of what it would mean to live successfully are not our own. They're sucked in from other people; chiefly, if you're a man, your father, and if you're a woman, your mother. Psychoanalysis has been drumming home this message for about 80 years. No one's quite listening hard enough, but I very much believe it's true.

The more determinedly I exist, as myself, within the conditions of the time, the more clearly I shall hear the language of the past, the nearer I shall feel the breath of the centuries.

金钱之神在文学的殿堂中没有位置。

【原文】司马牛忧曰：“人皆有兄弟，我独亡。”子夏曰：“商闻之矣：‘死生有命，富贵在天’。君子敬而无失，与人恭而有礼。四海之内，皆兄弟也。君子何患乎无兄弟也?”【译文】司马牛忧伤地说：“别人都有兄弟，唯独我没有。”子夏说：“我听说过：‘死生命中注定，富贵由天安排。’君子(只要)敬业而不犯错误，对人恭敬而有礼貌。四海之内都是兄弟呀。君子担心什么没有兄弟呢?”

贫困并非不可避免；它是一个可以解决的问题。