Lives Other Than My Own

by Emmanuel Carrère

To live happily, live hidden, as a French proverb says.

“If we knew how vulnerable it makes us, we’d never dare to be happy.”

Béatrix Beck, whom I like a lot: Plus loin: mais où?

“A visit always brings pleasure—if not when it begins, then when it ends.”

It was like watching a film you love beside someone who’s less impressed,

because he never settled into one discipline, he missed out on the bright career for which he’d seemed destined.

what matters isn’t what you do but how you do it and that it’s better to be a good butcher than a bad painter, we still generally make a distinction between creative professions and all the rest, and it’s the creative ones that usually inspire us to see excellence (defined not only as competence but as talent and charisma, too) in terms of greatness.

We’re always pleased when people who love us pounce on our shortcomings as extra reasons to love us.

but he knows where he is.

“He knows where he is” is the highest compliment Étienne can pay. At first I didn’t really get what he meant, but now I understand better, probably because I better understand where I am.

I say that what they were together was friends and that having a true friend in life is as rare and precious as true love.

What sages throughout history have proclaimed the secret of happiness, being here and now, without regretting the past or worrying about the future,

Freud’s definition of mental health has always appealed to me, even though it seemed beyond reach: the ability to love and work.

I’ve sometimes heard it said that happiness is best understood in retrospect. One thinks: I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was happy.