There are some days when I think I’m going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.

First and foremost comes my family and my life with Brad. We have so much joy in raising our children and teaching them about the world that nothing really compares to that.

You may never get to that perfect world that you’re waiting for where everything’s going to be perfect and you got that much money and your house paid off.

Happy the people whose annals are vacant.

The word ‚happy‘ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

It is a very mixed blessing to be brought back from the dead.

Of course, to have money is just great because you can do what you think is important to you. I always was a rich person because money’s not related to happiness.

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this; was it done with enjoyment, was the carver happy while he was about it?

Most people return small favors, acknowledge medium ones and repay greater ones – with ingratitude.

I’m mortified to be on the stage, but then again, it’s the only place where I’m happy.

I think most artists would be happy to have bigger audiences rather than smaller ones. It doesn’t mean that they are going to change their work in order necessarily to get it, but they’re happy if they do get it.

You have to like the present; if not your life becomes secondhand, if you think it was better before. Or that it will be better in the future.

The choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation.

I am not happy, and the quest for happiness as a principal objective is not part of my world. Of course, ever since I can remember, I have done what I felt like doing.

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

Family and friendships are two of the greatest facilitators of happiness.

Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.

I’d like to think you don’t stop being creative once you get happy.

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

What’s real freedom? Real freedom is being able to not have my way and still be just as happy as if I did.

If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.

If someone decides they’re not going to be happy, it’s not your problem. You don’t have to spend your time and energy trying to cheer up someone who has already decided to stay in a bad mood. Believe it or not, you can actually hurt people by playing into their self-pity.

Sometimes we look back and 10 years from now we think, ‚Boy, those were great old days.‘ Well, you know, we’re living in the good old days.

He that has done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.

I don’t mean to be cocky, but if I’m never on TV again, if I never make another dollar, I am proud. I did what I wanted to do.

When you focus on being a blessing, God makes sure that you are always blessed in abundance.

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

A lot of people have it a lot worse than you do.

He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.

When I look back on my life as a whole, it is impossible for me not to feel blessed.

Human beings will be happier – not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That’s my utopia.

A woman’s heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed recipe.

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.

The simplest and most psychologically satisfying explanation of any observed phenomenon is that it happened that way because someone wanted it to happen that way.

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

God wants to bless us where we are.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

When you focus on how wonderful God is and all the great things He’s done… is doing… and even will do in your life, your natural response will be praise, adoration and awe. Don’t let yourself ever get used to it… stay amazed!

I love making people laugh. And I love laughing.

A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short.

Once you start a working on something, don’t be afraid of failure and don’t abandon it. People who work sincerely are the happiest.

We don’t laugh because we’re happy – we’re happy because we laugh.

He who loves 50 people has 50 woes; he who loves no one has no woes.

I didn’t want to be a writer, but I became one. And now I have many readers, in many countries. I think that’s a miracle. So I think I have to be humble regarding this ability. I’m proud of it and I enjoy it, and it is strange to say it this way, but I respect it.

A man will speedily sit down and sympathize with a friend’s griefs, but if he sees him honored and esteemed, he is apt to regard him as a rival and does not so readily rejoice with him. This ought not to be; without effort, we ought to be happy in our brother’s happiness.

I’m grateful for always this moment, the now, no matter what form it takes.

Whether happiness may come or not, one should try and prepare one’s self to do without it.

If our condition were truly happy, we would not seek diversion from it in order to make ourselves happy.

There is no way to happiness – happiness is the way.

If you can’t make it better, you can laugh at it.

Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.

I don’t want to be too critical of what other people do, but when people go back to do the same thing that they did, I’m completely confused. I’m like, ‚Didn’t you make that movie already?‘ I’ve been very fortunate, and I’m well taken care of, so the least I can do is try to go forward.

No one has a right to consume happiness without producing it.

It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

See how many are better off than you are, but consider how many are worse.

I think happiness is a goal all of us can agree on. Let’s face it – we all would like to be happy.

If my world were to cave in tomorrow, I would look back on all the pleasures, excitements and worthwhilenesses I have been lucky enough to have had. Not the sadness, not my miscarriages or my father leaving home, but the joy of everything else. It will have been enough.