"We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive."

"Ever since the dawn of civilization, 20-somethings have been united by their faith in one true goal. They keep this at the forefront of their minds by reciting the following mantra: I will find a job and not be a complete failure. I will find a job and not be a complete failure. Many 20-somethings chant this as part of their morning routines, though it is especially important to recite during major holidays and phone calls with parents."

"Life is about doing things that don’t suck with people who don’t suck."

"Probably for every man there is at least one city that sooner or later turns into a girl. How well or how badly the man actually knew the girl doesn’t necessarily affect the transformation. She was there, and she was the whole city, and that’s that."

"In your twenties, you’re practically a slave to your dreams. You abuse your body and mind to make your dreams come true."

"Desperation is like a spilled drink: even if it’s delicious, no one will get near it. Cultivate an aura of glamorous unapproachability."

"Travel is so rewarding that it should take precedence over other things younger people spend money on."

"We live in time - it holds us and molds us - but I never felt I understood it very well. And I’m not referring to theories about how it bends and doubles back, or may exist elsewhere in parallel versions. No, I mean ordinary, everyday time, which clocks and watches assure us passes regularly: tick-tock, click-clock. Is there anything more plausible than a second hand? And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time’s malleability. Some emotions speed it up, others slow it down; occasionally, it seems to go missing - until the eventual point when it really does go missing, never to return."