Your self-image acts like a thermostat. Raise it and your life adjusts upward. Lower it and opportunities disappear. You can read about it in my new book, a practical philosophy of identity, behaviour, and personal transformation ➡️ buff.ly/I6HJNCB

One of the strange things about having written for a long time is that your old work becomes evidence of people you used to be. Sometimes you read something and think: "Yes. Absolutely." And sometimes: "Who on earth wrote this?"

There are days when the most interesting thing that happens is that someone says something ridiculous over coffee. I write those things down. Beware.

I don't think ambition disappears with age; I think it gets more specific. At twenty-five, you might want everything. Later on, you may finally know which things you don't want at all. That can be considerably more useful.

One of the underrated pleasures of getting older is being able to leave a room without needing everyone in it to like you. Not every room, obviously, but quite a few.

Some relationships survive because two people still love each other and some survive because they have become very good at being together. Those aren't necessarily the same thing.

Women are often taught to make themselves useful. Be helpful. Be accommodating. Blah. Remember everyone's birthday. Blah blah. Notice what needs doing. Anticipate the problem. Blah blah blah. There is a point at which useful becomes invisible. I think that's worth noticing.

I find it interesting how differently people talk about money depending on whether they have enough of it. When you don't have enough, money is practical but when you have enough, people often start pretending it isn't important. I'm not convinced.

There is a point in many careers when the question changes from: "What can I achieve?" to: "Do I actually want the life that comes with achieving it?" They are not the same question.

Hannah Arendt spent much of her life thinking about what it means to think for yourself. THAT seems like a rather good subject for a woman to leave behind. Today, on her birthday, I'm thinking about that and about how easily we can mistake conformity for certainty.

There is a particular kind of freedom in discovering that something you thought was "just who you are" was actually something you learned. You can learn things, which means that, inconveniently or conveniently, you can unlearn them too.

I've become suspicious of the phrase "that's just how I am." It sounds definitive. Often it's just a very efficient way of ending the conversation.

I think we underestimate how much energy goes into maintaining an old version of ourselves. Sometimes the life change isn't the exhausting bit. The exhausting bit is trying to convince yourself that nothing has changed.

Sometimes the most revealing thing about a person isn't what they say they want but what they keep protecting. A version of themselves that has already expired.

There are identities we choose and there are identities other people hand us. It is worth occasionally asking which ones you actually applied for.

We talk a lot about confidence but sometimes I wonder whether confidence is simply believing you are allowed to be the person you already are.

I've never particularly wanted to be inspirational; I'd rather be interesting. Same for others. Make me think. Make me laugh. Make me notice something I hadn't noticed before. Occasionally, make me wonder why on earth I hadn't seen it sooner.

The books I remember aren't necessarily the ones that gave me answers. They're the ones that left something slightly unsettled. A sentence I kept thinking about or a question I hadn't asked myself before.

One of the things I like about writing is that I can start with a question without knowing where I'm going to end up. Sometimes that is enough.

I have never understood the idea that a writer should have one thing to say. One thing to say? I have barely got one thing to say before something else happens and distracts me.