Mark Manson

"When most people set out to change their lives, they often focus on all the external stuff, like a new job or a new location or new friends or a new romantic prospects and on and on. The reality is that changing your life starts with changing the way you see everything in your life."

"'War and Peace' may be the most epic thing ever created by a human being."

"Approaching people looking for something in return isn't a relationship, it's a transaction."

"By itself, love is never enough to sustain a relationship."

"Death is important for a couple reasons. The first is that death creates scarcity in our life, which therefore gives our decisions meaning and value. From a practical point of view, it therefore makes sense that we keep our own deaths in mind when deciding how to use our time."

"Every new conversation, every new relationship, brings new challenges and opportunities for honest expression."

"For whatever reason, when it came out in 1995, 'Infinite Jest' became a cultural event. It was the massive book that was 'cool' for all the Gen Xers to read."

"How do I control my emotions? How do I stop getting angry so often, or how do I stop being sad? And I think there's a really important distinction to understand is that you can't completely control your emotions. What you control is your reaction to your own emotions. And a lot of people don't ever make that separation for what goes on with them."

"I started my blog back in 2009 because every Internet business and marketing seminar I watched at the time told me I had to. I had been trying to get a business started selling dating and life advice and was struggling."

"If I ask you, 'What do you want out of life?' and you say something like, 'I want to be happy and have a great family and a job I like,' it's so ubiquitous that it doesn't even mean anything. Everyone wants that."

"If someone is better than you at something, then it's likely because she has failed at it more than you have. If someone is worse than you, it's likely because he hasn't been through all of the painful learning experiences you have."

"It's possible to fall in love with somebody who doesn't treat us well, who makes us feel worse about ourselves, who doesn't hold the same respect for us as we do for them, or who has such a dysfunctional life themselves that they threaten to bring us down with them."

"Many people get into a relationship as a way to compensate for something they lack or hate within themselves. This is a one-way ticket to a toxic relationship because it makes your love conditional - you will love your partner as long as they help you feel better about yourself."

"Romantic love is a trap designed to get two people to overlook each other's faults long enough to get some babymaking done. It generally only lasts for a few years at most."

"True love - that is, deep, abiding love that is impervious to emotional whims or fancy - is a choice. It's a constant commitment to a person regardless of the present circumstances."

"What's interesting about emotions is that the more you try to control them or to bottle them up, the stronger they get. So, the more I try to stop being sad, the sadder I'm going to get."

"Writing/reading is like visiting another person's brain. And a short book or article is like a short stay. You come in, have a coffee, talk about the weather or sports, and then move on."