Finding flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Quotes VIII

-When we are able to confront life with such involvement and enthusiasm, we can be said to have achieved an autotelic personality.
-There is a gradation, ranging from individuals who almost never feel that what they do is worth doing for its own sake, to others who feel that most anything they do is important and valuable in its own right. It is to this latter individuals that the term autotelic applies.
-An autotelic person needs few material possessions and little entertainment, comfort, power, or fame because so much of what he or she does is already rewarding.  Because such persons experience flow in work, in family life, when interacting with people, when eating, and even when alone with nothing to do, they are less dependent on the external rewards that keep others motivated to go on a life composed of dull and meaningless routines. They are more autonomous and independent, because they cannot be as easily manipulated with threats or rewards from the outside. At the same time, they are more involved with everything around them because they are fully immersed in the current of life.
-An important dimension of it means to be autotelic is what one does with one's time.
-An autotelic person is often in challenging situations.
-Self-reported happiness is not a very good indicator of the quality of a person's life.
-It is not enough to be happy to have an excellent life. The point is to be happy while doing things that stretch our skills, that help us grow and fulfill our potential.
-If there is one quality that distinguishes autotelic individuals, it is that their psychic energy seems inexhaustible.
-Autotelic persons are less concerned with themselves, and therefore have more free psychic energy to experience life with.
-Creative individuals are usually autotelic as well, and they often achieve their breakthroughs because they have surplus psychic energy to invest in apparently trivial objects.
-I don't care what kind of problem it is. If I can solve it, it is fun. It is really a lot of fun to solve problems, isn't it? Isn't it that what's interesting in life?
-PAULING. What starting him on a long and productive life was a determination to participate as fully as possible in the life around him.
-Every morning you wake up and it's like the dawn of creation.
-Without disinterested interest life is uninteresting.
-Time is what one must find in order to develop interest and curiosity to enjoy life for its own sake.
-As one focuses on any segment of reality, a potentially infinite range of opportunities for action is revealed for our skills to engage with. There is never a good excuse for being bored.
-Those who survive are able to ignore selectively the external conditions, and to redirect their attention to an inner life that is real only to themselves.
-One needs to learn to control attention.