Theodore Zeldin

The great thing about marriage is that it creates trust, the most precious of things.

People are going to be living quite soon for 100 years. Our idea of how a family works no longer applies. It's no good saying you're going to have children for 15 years and then you're going to retire and have hobbies, because you've got 40 more years to go after 60 and you're in good health until 90 or something.

Each person is an enigma. You're a puzzle not only to yourself but also to everyone else, and the great mystery of our time is how we penetrate this puzzle.

People in this world of superficial communication find themselves isolated and lonely and have difficult in talking about personal things that really matter to them.

A dream is what makes people love life even when it is painful.

I particularly value conversations which are meetings on the borderline of what I understand and what I don't, with people who are different from myself.

The brain is full of lonely ideas, begging you to make some sense of them, to recognize them as interesting. The lazy brain just files them away in old pigeonholes, like a bureaucrat who wants an easy life. The lively brain picks and chooses and creates new works of art out of ideas.