"You can avoid being a neurotic if you stop obsessively analysing what you imagine to be your character: never mind your faults, stop moaning about your complexes, do not pour out confessions about what you can and cannot do, like or desire. Treat each meeting with a person as an independent event. 'A geisha is always ready to produce pleasure without considering her own needs.' Put aside personal ambitions and the expectations you have of yourself. Learn to be a geisha by being, first of all, a geisha to your own body; look after it, cook meals for yourself when you are alone as though giving yourself a treat; look after your mind by feeding it with poetry and music. Avoid creating an excessively rigid idea of your desires. Look upon yourself as an amoeba, floating through life, dividing: do not be afraid of losing your identity. Or look upon yourself as a collection of electric light bulbs: do not put all the electricity into a single bulb, or it will explode; allow your energy to circulate freely through the many sides of yourself. The looser, the more open and limitless your identity, the better. Treat your emotions as a garden needing to be kept tidy. Be generous, and that will stimulate new resources within yourself, new ideas. Follow the 'laws of nature'. It is up to you."

- An Intimate History of Humanity, Theodore Zeldin