Quotes About Contentment

And did I not think then, What nonsense it is to suppose one man so different from another when all that life really boils down to is getting a decent cup of coffee and room to stretch out in?

Speculation can be more gentle, can take its time, when it is not driven by desire.

He seemed happy. She thought that she seldom concerned herself about Laurence's being happy. She wanted him to be in a good mood, so that everything would go smoothly, but that was not the same thing.

She was learning, quite late, what many people around her appeared to have known since childhood—that life can be perfectly satisfying without major achievements. It could be brimful of occupations which did not weary you to the bone.

The thing is to be happy, he said. No matter what. Just try that. You can. It gets to be easier and easier. It's nothing to do with circumstances. You wouldn't believe how good it is. Accept everything and then tragedy disappears. Or tragedy lightens, anyway, and you're just there, going along easy in the world.

La cuestión es ser feliz -dijo Neal-. A toda costa. Inténtalo. Se puede. Y luego cada vez resulta más fácil. No tiene nada que ver con las circunstancias. No te imaginas hasta qué punto funciona. Se aceptan las cosas y la tragedia desaparece. O pesa menos, en cualquier caso, y de pronto descubres que estás en paz con el mundo.

She sat with that chewed-in yet absentminded smile on her face as if she'd been given a present she knew she would like, even if she hadn't got the wrapping off it yet.

Time had been filled, reliably, agreeably, they had not been left adrift, and for this they were truly embarrassingly grateful.

Children Katy's age had no problem with monotony. In fact they embraced it, diving into it and wrapping the familiar words round their tongues as if they were a candy that could last forever.

I would often invent this dream for myself at the edge of sleep, and then it was strange how content it would make me, how it would make peace and consolation flow, and I would close my eyes and float on it into my real dreams which were never so kind [...].

For some reason he thinks of Diane in her unbecoming red ski jacket and decides that her life is her life, there is not much use worrying about it. And he thinks of his wife, pretending to laugh at the television. Her quietness.

She thought back to what he had said. /I could make you very happy./ It was something men said then, when they were trying to persuade you, and that was what they meant. It seemed rash and sweeping to her, dazzling but *presumptuous*. She had to try to see herself, then, as somebody who could be /made happy/. The whole worrying, striving, complicated bundle of her -- was that something that could just be picked up and /made happy/?

The thing is to be happy," he said. "No matter what. Just try that. You can. It gets to be easier and easier. It's nothing to do with circumstances. You wouldn't believe how good it is. Accept everything and then tragedy disappears. Or tragedy lightens, anyway, and you're just there, going along easy in the world." Now, good-bye.

That's something I think is growing on me as I get older: happy endings.

said that I had considered what he was saying, but no. "The thing is to be happy," he said. "No matter what. Just try that. You can. It gets to be easier and easier. It's nothing to do with circumstances. You wouldn't believe how good it is. Accept everything and then tragedy disappears. Or tragedy lightens, anyway, and you're just there, going along easy in the world.

Children Katy's age had no problem with monotony. In fact they embraced it, diving into it and wrapping the familiar words round their tongues as if they were a candy that could last forever.

Estaba aprendiendo, con bastante retraso, lo que muchas personas de su entorno parecían saber desde la infancia: que la vida puede ser plena sin grandes éxitos. Podía rebosar de actividades que no

Demasiada felicidad

Yet those few hours filled her with an assurance that the life she was going back to, which seemed so makeshift and unsatisfactory, was only temporary and could easily be put up with.

me if everything was all right. I replied, "Everything's copacetic." And it was in fact "copacetic"—our word for "fine and dandy.

Now I am in the place I call this wide wide Heaven because it includes all my simplest desires but also the most humble and grand. The word my grandfather uses is comfort. So there are cakes and pillows and colors galore, but underneath this more obvious patchwork quilt are places like a quiet room where you can go and hold someone's hand and not have to say anything. Give no story. Make no claim. Where you can live at the edge of your skin for as long as you wish.

Almost, not quite,I wish you all a long and happy Life

She likes a quiet life, has few close friends, and makes new ones slowly. ...'I want to work on my next book... and try to be here to garden a little in the fall, and read. I'm married to the man I want to be married to, live in a certain way that I like living. It's very weird to succeed at thirty-nine years old and realize that in the midst of your failure, you were slowly building the life that you wanted anyway.

He wore his own innocence like a comfortable old coat.