Happiness is a journey that depends solely on ourselves. We should be grateful to life because so much that it has in store for us will be marvelous and we have the good fortune to live it.

Clarity when I am writing.

I have no idea what perfect happiness feels like, but I am looking forward to the experience.

“Perfect happiness!”—waking in the morning to a clear & benevolent-seeming sky, a view from a window of a beautiful (if overgrown) garden, a cat purring. The excitement of rewriting the previous day’s work, & continuing on from that point energized & hopeful. For a writer, “happiness” isn’t likely to ever be “perfect”—but it is likely to be bound up with the work-in-progress. First drafts tend to be frustrating, exhausting—subsequent drafts sometimes move swiftly, even miraculously. For most adults, “Perfect is the enemy of good”—we learn to appreciate whatever measure of happiness we have, however modest.

Not always standing up for myself enough.

Peacefully, in good physical health, sound of mind, still active, at a great age, with my children around me.

My agent Mort Janklow, Sidney Poitier, and Barbara Walters.

Loyalty, kindness, honesty, trustworthiness, reliability.

The first 10 years of my marriage, when my children were small.

Losing another child. (I lost one of my sons to suicide when he was 19.)