With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.

When I was into my 30s, I became increasingly depressed by rejection letters. I had had the feeling that by the time I was 30, I would be established. But I was not at all. By the time of ‚Lives of Girls and Women,‘ I was into my 40s and I had become more thin-skinned.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

God will prepare everything for our perfect happiness in heaven, and if it takes my dog being there, I believe he’ll be there.

Life in abundance comes only through great love.

The child in you, like all children, loves to laugh, to be around people who can laugh at themselves and life. Children instinctively know that the more laughter we have in our lives, the better.

I never – you know also one of the things that would save me for a man my age, it was not that easy to lose that much weight and fall down and look like something draped.

Confidence, as a teenager? Because I knew what I loved. I loved to read; I loved to listen to music; and I loved cats. Those three things. So, even though I was an only kid, I could be happy because I knew what I loved.

I feel lucky that I can have people laugh solidly for a whole hour by just saying what I think and getting paid for it.

The health of the people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all their powers as a state depend.

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

With compassion you can die for other people, like the mother who can die for her child. You have the courage to say it because you are not afraid of losing anything, because you know that understanding and love is the foundation of happiness. But if you have fear of losing your status, your position, you will not have the courage to do it.

No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.

Only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.

Life well spent is long.

The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.

Forty is the old age of youth, fifty is the youth of old age.

I’ve run the Boston Marathon 6 times before. I think the best aspects of the marathon are the beautiful changes of the scenery along the route and the warmth of the people’s support. I feel happier every time I enter this marathon.

You know when you’re young and you see a play in high school, and the guys all have gray in their hair and they’re trying to be old men and they have no idea what that’s like? It’s just that stupid the other way around.

We have the tendency to run away from suffering and to look for happiness. But, in fact, if you have not suffered, you have no chance to experience real happiness.

Never make friends with people who are above or below you in status. Such friendships will never give you any happiness.

All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.

I’m so happy because today I found my friends – they’re in my head.

Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.

As I get older, I tend to put more into family than I used to.

Where thou art, that is home.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

I always was a rich person because money’s not related to happiness.

As long as possible, I would really like to complete one marathon per year. Though my time has been slowing down as I get older, it has become a very important part of my life.

If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter. He has a heart capable of mirth, and naturally disposed to it.

Everything I read about hitting a midlife crisis was true. I had such a struggle letting go of youthful things and learning how to exist and have enthusiasm while settling into the comfort of an older age.

I am criticised for not celebrating my goals enough. I am very happy from within, very calm. I just don’t celebrate. I celebrate inside.

Too often in life, something happens and we blame other people for us not being happy or satisfied or fulfilled. So the point is, we all have choices, and we make the choice to accept people or situations or to not accept situations.

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

Remember happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely on what you think.

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.

Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion.

I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.

I’m so old, I don’t buy green bananas any more.

Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

Well, I’m in my 60s now. I finally look it, I think. People until I was 60 would always say they thought I looked younger, which I think, without flattering myself, I did, but I think I certainly have, as George Orwell says people do after a certain age, the face they deserve.

Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.

I’m one of the luckiest people on earth.

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

There is something curiously boring about somebody else’s happiness.

By the time you’ve reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that is at least the beginning of wisdom.

I will never be happy without having someone. Going to sleep alone kills me.

Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It comes as a by-product of providing a useful service.

He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.

I can say I’d honestly rather be happy than have 30 to 40 songs that I’ve written about these thrilling, exciting, horrible, unhappy times.

A good laugh is sunshine in the house.

I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active – not more happy – nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.

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.

Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.

I laugh all the time – at things, people, stuff, whatever. But, I don’t laugh onstage because then it’s serious business.

Our vision and commitment is towards the country’s progress, its place in the world and the happiness of its people.

She laughs at everything you say. Why? Because she has fine teeth.

Any of us can be happy and have a good attitude when everything is going our way. But I believe it’s the real test of your character and of your faith to say, ‚Things are not going our way, but I’m still being good to people; I’m still attending church; I still have a good attitude.‘