Quotes from Gretchen Rubin

Studies show that in a phenomenon called "emotional contagion," we unconsciously catch emotions from other people—whether good moods or bad ones. Taking the time to be silly means that we're infecting one another with good cheer, and people who enjoy silliness are one third more likely to be happy. As

Because of the delicate structure of the ear, our hearing is vulnerable to damage. We're born with about sixteen thousand of the cochlear hair cells that allow us to pick up sounds, and these cells don't regenerate.

For people managing Upholders, it's helpful to remember that because they hate to fail to meet an expectation, they may find it hard to set priorities—all expectations seem equally important. To counter this, a boss or colleague should make priorities clear: "Usually I want that report every Friday, but when the annual report is due, it's okay to put off the weekly report while we finish the annual report. The annual report is more important.

I did, however, vow to stop reading books that I didn't enjoy. I used to pride myself on finishing every book I started—no longer.

I wanted a pace of life that was deliberate—that felt neither fast nor slow.

Besides clarity of values, another kind of clarity supports habit formation: clarity of action.

The lay reader, who knows only what the biographer tells him, reads . . . in a state of bovine equanimity.

It's a Secret of Adulthood: What we assume will be temporary often becomes permanent; what we assume is permanent often proves temporary.

I realized that one way to deprive myself without creating a feeling of deprivation is to deprive myself totally.

the marriage expert John Gottman calls the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" for their destructive role in relationships: stonewalling, defensiveness, criticism, and contempt. Well

It would be impossible for me to eat one square of chocolate a day. For the rest of the day, I'd be thinking about that bar of chocolate. In fact, I discovered that the question "Could you eat one square of chocolate every day?" is a good way to distinguish Abstainers from Moderators. All Moderators seem to keep a bar of chocolate stashed away to eat one square at a time. (Maybe this explains the mystery of why chocolate bars are divided into squares.)

by acting with more love, finding work you

couldn't just jump into this happiness project. I had a lot to learn before I was ready for my year to begin. After my first few weeks of heavy reading, as I toyed with different ideas about how to set up my experiment, I called my younger sister, Elizabeth. After

Underreact to a problem - Enter into the interests of others - Go on Wednesday adventures - Give warm greetings and farewells

It was time to expect more of myself. Yet as I thought about happiness, I kept running up against paradoxes. I wanted to change myself but accept myself. I wanted to take myself less seriously—and also more seriously. I wanted to use my time well, but I also wanted to wander, to play, to read at whim. I wanted to think about myself so I could forget myself. I was always on the edge of agitation; I wanted to let go of envy and anxiety about the future, yet keep my energy and ambition.

a quotation from Lewis's brilliant essay "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.

Associate with people who are likely to improve you.

Same person, same activity, different habit.

To be happy, I needed to generate more positive emotions, so that I increased the amount of joy, pleasure, enthusiasm, gratitude, intimacy, and friendship in my life. That wasn't hard to understand.

If you're doing something that you don't enjoy and you don't have the gratification of success, failure is particularly painful. But doing what you love is itself the reward.

I'm not the only one to feel this effect; as we get older, time seems to pass more quickly. As poet Robert Southey explained: "Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life. They appear so while they are passing; they seem to have been so when we look back on them; and they take up more room in our memory than all the years that succeed them.

My idea of "this is the kind of person I am" is so bound up in my habits and actions that it's hard for me to see. But eventually, I realized that my sense of identity makes it easier or harder to change a habit.

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.

feelings, so that I suffered less guilt, remorse, shame, anger, envy, boredom, and irritation. Also easy to understand.