The pressure to go big on your outdoor lighting decoration scheme, the attendant financial worries and the expectation that you will be your most sparkling, delightful social self, dressed up to the nines and available for every and any coffee/cocktail/party invitation that comes your way

I made lists and lists of awful illnesses, terrible diseases, dreadful diagnoses and, to my mind, every single one of them was preferable to the one my mother had just received

Even though joyful moments are by nature small and fleeting they somehow have the power to make us feel truly alive - and joy is nearly always free.

The fact that disappointments hurt us so much can feel humiliating

Her words about action, change, and accountability are amongst the most moving I have ever heard, from any orator, political or civilian, past or present, historical or contemporary

"It doesn’t exist on its own inside a record sleeve or enclosed in the covers of a book. It needs fans to do as the old sean-nós singers and storytellers did, share it with each other, pass it on, and hand it down."

"It’s interesting that she appeals to each generation anew - something about her writing gets to the very heart of many of us"

A lot of the specified non-negotiables harked back to the state of childhood, where we allowed ourselves the simple joy of noticing things like yellow doors or red cars or birds or the pleasure of reading for pleasure alone

And yet many of us ignore it or think it is not for us

Nobel laureate economist Robert Schiller has posited that the hit of ‘emotional security’ we get from buying and owning our own homes in uncertain times is the thing that is giving the property market its buoyancy