The truth is that relative income is not directly related to happiness. Nonpartisan social-survey data clearly show that the big driver of happiness is earned success: a person's belief that he has created value in his life or the life of others.
It's good to follow the path of personal happiness to some extent. People tend to get upset however when you drive a steamroller down it.
I keep mementos from everything I've done. I've got my cab driver's license from 'Happiness.' I've got a pair of glasses and a belt buckle from playing John Lennon. I've got a pair of sunglasses from playing Andy Warhol... It's all in a box in the garage.
As a bookish child in Calcutta I used to thrill to the adventures of bad girls whose pursuit of happiness swept them outside the bounds of social decency. Tess of the d'Urbervilles Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina lived large in my imagination. The naughty girls of Hollywood films flirted and knew how to drive.
We learn the inner secret of happiness when we learn to direct our inner drives our interest and our attention to something besides ourselves.
I got all my work done to graduate in two months and then they were like I'm sorry you have to take driver's ed. I just kind of went Oh forget it.
I think for voters what matters is the values that drive the government.
I'm not driven to get back into politics. It's not on my top five things to do before I die but saying that I may be in politics in the next year or the next ten years. I've been on the front line for 12 years four in state government eight on the national level.
I would cap the amount of federal government can spend at 20 percent of the economy. Bring it back to 20 percent or lower. And say we are not going to spend above that level. Democrats they want to raise your taxes and spend more and more and turn us into an economy which is no longer driven by the private sector.
It's opportunity. It's opportunity not a check from government - it's opportunity that has always driven America and defined us as Americans.