Quotes from Gretchen Rubin

On Three Ways of Writing for Children": When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

Once I've cleared away the things I don't need, use, or love, my surroundings reveal to me, and to others, the things that matter most to me. Careful curation means that my space and my possessions reflect my truest identity.

The days are long, but the years are short...

Although men and women agree that sharing activities and self-disclosure are important, women's idea of an intimate moment is a face-to-face conversation, while men feel close when they work or play sitting alongside someone.

Hugging relieves stress, boosts feelings of closeness, and even squelches pain. In one study, people assigned to give five hugs each day for a month, aiming to hug as many different people as they could, became happier.

At certain points in our lives, it may not be possible to be happy, but it is possible to try to be happier—as happy as we can be, under the circumstances—and by doing so, fortify ourselves against adversity.

Use counters for activities, not for storage.

See the child you have," as the saying goes, "not the child you wish you had." In the end, I agreed with Michel de Montaigne: "The least strained and most natural ways of the soul are the most beautiful; the best occupations are the least forced.

I wasn't sure how to answer. Could I tell him that one Secret of Adulthood is Never start a sentence with the words 'No offense'?

You can choose what you do, but you can't choose what you like to do.

Technology is a good servant but a bad master.

The Strategy of Scheduling, of setting a specific, regular time for an activity to recur, is one of the most familiar and powerful strategies of habit formation

Research suggests that about 40 percent of our behavior is repeated almost daily, and mostly in the same context.

But it doesn't matter what we think a person (or ourselves) should be able to do - what matter is only what works for each individual.

I wasn't as happy as I could be, and my life wasn't going to change unless I made it change.

The opposite of happiness is unhappiness, not depression.

I was surprised to learn from my research, however, that the well-known notion of anger catharsis is poppycock. There's no evidence for the belief that "letting off steam" is healthy or constructive. In fact, studies show that aggressively expressing anger doesn't relieve anger but amplifies it. On the other hand, not expressing anger often allows it to disappear without leaving ugly traces.

If you need to buy things to store things, perhaps you have too many things.

Moral Licensing Loophole: In moral licensing, we give ourselves permission to do something "bad" (eat potato chips, bust the budget) because we've been "good." We reason that we've earned it or deserve it.

Lack of Control Loophole: Weirdly, we often have an illusion of control over things we can't control—"If I spend a lot of time worrying, the plane is less likely to crash," "If I play my lucky numbers, I'll win the lottery eventually"—but deny control over things we can control ("If my cell phone buzzes, I have to check it"). We argue that circumstances force us to break a habit, but often, we have more control than we admit.

Every time you break the law you pay, and every time you obey the law you pay." Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels, we all must grapple with the consequences of our Tendency—with its strengths and its weaknesses, its foibles and its frustrations.

Remind the Obliger that saying no allows him or her to say yes to work that's more important

Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life, and a significant element of happiness. If we have habits that work for us, we're much more likely to be happy, healthy, productive, and creative.

when encouraging Questioners to take action, it can be useful to remind them, Just try it. It's an experiment.