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    “This may be the one-sentence essence of what I learned in my year among the oldest old: to shut down the noise and fears and desires that buffet our days and think about how amazing, really amazing, life is.  Could I do this?  Before the year began, my answer would have been no, that the noise and fears and desires were life itself.  But as the year went along I found myself shifting my focus to the quiet beneath the noise—how unlikely the moment was, how each sliver contained a gift that might never return.  Maybe this was what it meant to think like an old person.  I couldn’t live wholly in the moment, because I had a future to think about, but if I had learned anything, it was to live as if this future were finite, and the present all the more wondrous as a result.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 210)

      “The challenge, then, is to find a purpose in life that will sustain you through the latter years.  Kickboxing might not be a great choice, but painting, political activity, time with family, or passing along your skills to the next generation can be a reason for living at any age.  Practice law, feed the hungry, teach piano, harass your congressman, tell your story.  It’s your purpose in life: make it a passion, not a hobby.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 206)

        “Whether we’re twenty-five or eighty-five, we can choose to live in the things that warm us—in love, humor, compassion, empathy, a supportive arm—not because they make life easy, but because they do the most for us when life is hard.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 194)

          “Receiving is much harder than giving, but this fact is seldom recognized in mainstream American society.  Dependent people are often deprived of chances to give, finding that they must endure a state of almost constant relinquishment and passivity.  Consequently, the person receiving help accumulates a debt to the other and must bear the weight of feeling beholden day in and day out.  There are few means through which the person can pay back a caregiver for rides to the doctor, help with medical bill paperwork, handling loads of laundry, and check-up telephone calls—the list of favors owed can be immense.  The dependent person may yearn for something useful to do, only to be admonished, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll take care of everything.'” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 188)

            “Fulfillment need not be what’s just around the corner.  In the end, wisdom lies in finding it in the imperfect now.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 178)

              “Too often we think that if only we undo the impediments to our happiness, we can be truly happy.  But there are always more impediments, more reasons not to be happy now.  Helen chose instead to embrace the life she had.  She didn’t resent her daughter’s meddling or feel sorry for herself because she wasn’t getting married; she didn’t magnify her unmet desires by treating them as a punishment.  They were life, her life.  Impediments are the circumstances in which we find happiness.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 178)

                “To accept death was to accept life, and to accept life was to live in joy, however dire the circumstances around you.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 163)

                  “What I came to realize with John was that accepting death—wishing for it, even—didn’t devalue the days he had left, but made each count more because they were so few.  It freed him to live in the things he liked, not agonizing over what he would do if he could.  This was why talking about wanting to die could cheer him up.  Death gave everything its value.  The number of times he would see this or that friend was limited, so each time was precious.  The moments were supersaturated, not fleeting as they are in youth.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 151)

                    “‘Happy in spite of’ entails a choice to be happy; it acknowledges problems but doesn’t put them in the way of contentment.  ‘Happy if only’ pins happiness on outside circumstances: if only I had more money, less pain, a nicer spouse or house, I’d be happy as a clam.  ‘Happy if only’ feeds millions of dollars into lotteries or impulse purchases, which provide nothing of the sort.  Ping, by contrast, didn’t expect her hardships to pass, so didn’t pin her happiness on their doing so.  When she was younger, she said, she thought moving to America would solve her problems; she found that it just replaced them with others.  The lesson was to find happiness not in the absence of pain and loss, but in their acceptance.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 135)

                      “Troubles are always with us, and getting rid of this one or that won’t make us happy; it’ll just move another hardship to the head of the class.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 134)

                        “Fred, who had more hardships than most people but was highly grateful, wanted to live to 110; my mother, who had more advantages than most people, saw no point in living.  Advantages alone—even awareness of them—weren’t enough, perhaps because they can be lost.  Gratitude, on the other hand, was an affirmation that the world gave you things, and might continue to do so.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 122)

                          “Thanks are the highest form of thought, and… gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” ~ G. K. Chesterton, via Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 118)

                            “If you believe you are in control of your life, steering it in a course of your choosing, then old age is an affront, because it is a destination you didn’t choose.  But if you think of life instead as an improvisation in response to the stream of events coming at you—that is, a response to the world as it is—then old age is more another chapter in a long-running story.  The events are different, but they’re always different, and always some seem too much to bear.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 114)

                              “Problems [are] only problems if you [think] about them that way.  Otherwise they [are] life—and yours for the living.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 113)

                                “We’re made better by loving unconditionally: embracing the perfections in our imperfect mate, accepting that they’ll never change, growing into our own perfections by loving them.” ~ John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 84)