enjoyment

Life is more fun if you play games.

People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.

Demetrius the grammarian finding in the temple of Delphos a knot of philosophers set chatting together, said to them, __ither I am much deceived,or by your cheerful and pleasant countenances, you are engaged in no very deep discourse._ To which one of them, Heracleon the Megarean, replied: _ __is for such as are puzzled about inquiring whether the future tense of the verb Ballo be spelt with adouble L, or that hunt after the derivation of the comparatives Cheirou and Beltiou, and the superlatives Cheiriotou and Beliotou, to knit their brows whilst discoursing of their science; but as to philosophical discourses, they always divert and cheer up those that entertain them, and never deject them or make them sad.

We seek knowledge only because we desire enjoyment, and it is impossible to conceive why a person who has neither desires nor fears would take the trouble to reason.

Hence, in desiring, the more the enjoyment is delayed, the more fancy begins to weave about the object images of future fruition, and to clothe the desired object with properties calculated to inflame the impulse.

The dynamics of capitalism is postponement of enjoyment to the constantly postponed future.

Serving others is one of the bases for you to have or to enjoy a fullness of purpose in life.

What looks like enjoyment is the sneer of contempt. That's not a smile.

Learning is pleasurable but doing is the height of enjoyment.

I do feel that literature should be demystified. What I object to is what is happening in our era: literature is only something you get at school as an assignment. No one reads for fun, or to be subversive or to get turned on to something. It's just like doing math at school. I mean, how often do we sit down and do trigonometry for fun, to relax. I've thought about this, the domination of the literary arts by theory over the past 25 years -- which I detest -- and it's as if you have to be a critic to mediate between the author and the reader and that's utter crap. Literature can be great in all ways, but it's just entertainment like rock'n'roll or a film. It is entertainment. If it doesn't capture you on that level, as entertainment, movement of plot, then it doesn't work. Nothing else will come out of it. The beauty of the language, the characterisation, the structure, all that's irrelevant if you're not getting the reader on that level -- moving a story. If that's friendly to readers, I cop to it.

The main question to a novel is -- did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten? were you too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel produces these effects, it is good; if it does not -- story, language, love, scandal itself cannot save it. It is only meant to please; and it must do that or it does nothing.

[I]f a book is well written, I always find it too short.

you might want to decide fast. We live in a dangerous world. If you see a chance to be happy, you have to fight for it, so later you have no regrets.

One's first book kiss home run is always the best.

Danger and delight grow on one stalk.

The physically fit can enjoy their vices.

We must like what we have when we don't have what we like.

There are three ingredients in the good life learning earning and yearning.