Quotes About Contentment

But 'contentment'. Is that happiness? Or is that only resignation wearing a funny hat?

Look," I say at last. 'You know me. You know my life. I always thought-or hoped-" "You thought what?" "I just want to be happy," I finally say. She stares at me hard. "You have been," she says.

T.J. is addicted to ever new forms of comfort while oblivious to the need they might reveal;

perhaps it is true that, as Bertrand Russell once suggested, "to be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.

is envy just the illusion that the problem of happiness can be solved?

And is there a difference, I wonder, watching the ease with which T.J. settles back into her reading, between the happiness of being happy and the happiness of being happy because you think someone might be less happy than you?

you are the only woman I have ever met who I would want to be in a little house with, do you see? Other women make me want to get on boats and run away. You, you make me want to stay somewhere, so that I can see your face everyday. So that I can hold you everyday and watch you grow older. You make me want to be an adult man. You make me want to settle down.

Because that's the thing with getting what you want: all that yearning and dreaming and fantasizing leaves a great big hole that can only be filled with more yearning and dreaming and fantasizing.

You know, how you get to forty and you suddenly stop giving a shit about all the stupid things you worried about your whole life.

the lightness of having nothing to do and nowhere to be. She thought of all the things she could do once she'd finished this chapter of her life, all the books she could read and the picnics she could eat and the funfairs and shopping trips and holidays and parties.

cats stretched out in puddles of sunshine;

her heart suddenly expands and contracts with the knowledge that this boy is a part of her and that he loves her, that he is not seeking out his mother, he is content for her to come to him in the dark of night to comfort him.

A life lived in fast-forward and now, apparently, she should peak and crest and then come slowly, contentedly down the other side, but it doesn't feel as if there ever was a peak, rather an abyss formed of trauma that she keeps circling and circling with a knot of dread in the pit of her stomach.

The idea that Justin had sacrificed his life not for the glamorous refurbished version of Henry Lamb but for the original, slightly crappy version has filled his soul with rightness and substance. Henry Lamb was enough, he'd thought; he didn't need to be anybody else.

Poppy is basically forty years old, says Floyd admiringly. You know, how you get forty and you suddenly stop giving a shit about all the stupid things you worried about your whole life. Well, Poppy's already there.

She wants to stay in here. It's warm and it's safe. She feels protected from the strangeness of the evening, from the terrible energy in the air.

And I know that this will be my last sunset. this one, here, right now, on Christmas Eve, playing out in violent flames of red and gold across the horizon. And I know that these are my last moments. And that is fine. That is absolutely fine.

She hadn't missed out on anything: there was always food and holidays abroad and shopping trips to Oxford Street and takeaways on Friday nights; there was always enough of everything. Her life was perfect. But it was matte, not gloss.

Some things are better when it's raining. Like reading. Or sleeping. Or this." "Lying in bed with me?

I've never known anyone more ill equipped for happiness. He wouldn't know what to do with it.

Some folks are happier not being saved.

The problem with chasing after happiness was that it wasn't a destination you could reach. It was something that happened along the way.

You were never one to moon over handsome boys, or talk about balls and parties, or dream about your future husband." "That was because of Merripen," Win admitted. "He was all I ever wanted.

There is no peace in poverty