“I don’t think our minds are designed to accept that there’s no way out. Based on my own close calls, I suspect that if I am killed while biking, the state of mind in which I am likeliest to die is extreme annoyance.” — Tim Kreider, “Cycle of Fear,” New York Times (02012-05-07)
“I like to pretend worry is passive, something your brain does when it’s trapped and helpless, but it’s more often a way to avoid taking some direct action that would be frightening, difficult, inconvenient or boring, like drawing up a monthly budget or doing sit-ups or finally just summoning up the nerve to ask someone What, exactly, The Deal Is.” — Tim Kreider, “Cycle of Fear,” New York Times (02012-05-07)
“Worry is not productive; it’s a kind of procrastination.” — Tim Kreider, “Cycle of Fear,” New York Times (02012-05-07)
“If some cryptozoologist actually bagged a Yeti and gave it a Latin name, it would just be another animal. An intriguing animal, no doubt, but would it really be any more bizarre or improbable than a giraffe or a giant squid?” — Tim Kreider, “In Praise of Not Knowing,” New York Times (02011-06-19)
“We’re all anxiously sizing up how everyone else’s decisions have worked out to reassure ourselves that our own are vindicated — that we are, in some sense, winning.” — Tim Kreider, “The Referendum,” New York Times (02009-09-17)
“The Referendum is a phenomenon typical of (but not limited to) midlife, whereby people, increasingly aware of the finiteness of their time in the world, the limitations placed on them by their choices so far, and the narrowing options remaining to them, start judging their peers’ differing choices with reactions ranging from envy to contempt.” — Tim Kreider, “The Referendum,” New York Times (2009-09-17)
“Intense and present happiness is heartbreakingly ephemeral; as soon as you notice it you dispel it, like blocking yourself from remembering a word by trying too hard to retrieve it.” — Tim Kreider, “Averted Vision,” New York Times (2009-08-02)
“It’s like the revelation I had when I was a kid the first time I ever flew in an airplane: when you break through the cloud cover you realize that above the passing squalls and doldrums there is a realm of eternal sunlight, so keen and brilliant you have to squint against it, a vision to hold onto and take back with you when you descend once more beneath the clouds, under the oppressive, petty jurisdiction of the local weather.” — Tim Kreider, “Reprieve,” New York Times (2009-06-02)
“I’ve demonstrated an impressive resilience in the face of valuable life lessons.” — Tim Kreider, “Reprieve,” New York Times (2009-06-02)
“In another regrettable development, I am no longer thirteen, and apparently won’t be again.” — Tim Kreider, “The Decline and Fall of the Book Cover,” The New Yorker (2013-07-16)
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