Gretchen Rubin

“Whenever I'm trying to decide how to spend my precious time, energy, or money, I ask myself a series of questions. 'Will this broaden or deepen my relationships?' 'Will this contribute to an...”

“While television is a good servant, it's a bad master. It can swallow up huge quantities of our lives without much happiness bang for the buck.”

“I get such a buzz out of cleaning closets.”

“I love finding - or inventing - ways to categorize people.”

“I've found that I snack less and concentrate better when I chew on a plastic stirrer - the kind that you get to stir your to-go coffee. I picked up this habit from my husband, who loves to c...”

“Like most people, I have several pet subjects - that may or may not be interesting to other people. Don't get me started on happiness, or habits, or children's literature, or Winston Churchi...”

“It's so easy to use tired, shopworn figures of speech. I love using long, fancy words but have learned - mostly from writing my biography of Winston Churchill - that short, strong words work...”

“No leader did more for his country than Winston Churchill. Brave, magnanimous, traditional, he was like a king-general from Britain's heroic past. His gigantic qualities set him apart from o...”

“When I became obsessed with Winston Churchill, I wrote a book about Churchill. What a joy it was to write that book!”

“During my study of happiness, I noticed something that surprised me: I often learn more from one person's highly idiosyncratic experiences than I do from sources that detail universal princi...”

“I really work on paying attention to the clues my self is giving myself. For instance, I think of myself in the third person. That allows me to manage myself better.”

“If you've had something for more than six months, and it's still not repaired, it's clutter.”

“It's easier to get rid of things when you're giving them to someone who can use them, but don't let this kind intention become a source of clutter itself. I have a friend who has multiple pi...”

“In the scope of a happy life, a messy desk or an overstuffed coat closet is a trivial thing, yet I find - and I hear from other people that they agree - that getting rid of clutter gives a d...”

“The more I examine the issue of clutter, the more effort I put into combating it, because it really does act as a weight.”

“Some kind of clutter is difficult - letting go of things with sentimental value, sifting through papers - but some clutter I find very refreshing to clear. I drive my daughters nuts because...”

“Skillful conversationalists can explore disagreements and make points in ways that feel constructive and positive rather than combative or corrective.”

“Children's literature is one of my joys, and it's also my mental comfort food.”

“I'm a compulsive note-taker, and I used to feel self-conscious about pulling out my little notebook and taking notes during a casual conversation. Then I noticed that people really seemed to...”

“We need to have intimate, enduring bonds; we need to be able to confide; we need to feel that we belong; we need to be able to get support, and just as important for happiness, to give suppo...”