Alain de Botton

“The thing is that love gives us a ringside seat on somebody else's flaws, so of course you're gonna spot some things that kinda need to be mentioned. But often the romantic view is to say, '...”

“Asking someone to be with us turns out to be an impossibly demanding and therefore pretty mean thing to suggest to anyone we would really want the best for.”

“Most of the time, we make discoveries about how difficult people are at the moment when the difficulties have actually hurt us; therefore, we are not likely to be forgiving or sympathetic.”

“We have to put aside the customary historical reading of works of art in order to invite art to respond to certain quite specific pains and dilemmas of our psyches.”

“I waste most of the day, then finally start to write around 3 P.M., totally disgusted with myself for my wasteful nature.”

“The number one person who needs my books is me. I'm not some sort of disinterested guru who has worked life out and is handing things out to the poor people who might not have life worked ou...”

“If you are pro love, you have to be a little bit disloyal to the romantic feelings that propel you in the early days.”

“Politicians want people to be nice neighbours, but the tools at their disposal are just the tools of modern liberal society, which are nothing.”

“Katie Price is no exception. She, too, is - in a distinctive way - a philosopher. Partially, Katie Price's philosophy is one of extraordinary confidence. She is remarkable not for her looks...”

“Parents become very good at not hearing the explicit words and listening instead to what the child means but doesn't yet know how to say: 'I'm lonely, in pain, frightened' - distress which t...”

“I'm one of those introverted people who simply feels a lot better after spending time alone thinking through ideas and emotions. This is a sign, I've come to think, of a kind of emotional di...”

“Secular thinkers have a separation between thinking and doing. They don't have a grasp of the balance sheet. The doers are selling us potted plants and pizzas while the thinkers are a little...”

“I was foreign and Jewish, with a funny name, and was very small and hated sport, a real problem at an English prep school. So the way to get round it was to become the school joker, which I...”

“In the early days of love sometimes, you will report an ecstatic feeling you have met someone who seems to understand you without you needing to speak.”

“I remember going to university, and the people who'd left home for the first time looked at the food and were horrified. Whereas, my view was that if it was vaguely edible, then it's fine.”

“Many people in the intellectual elite are very scared of shouting. They insist on very quiet murmurs.”

“My dad was a slightly stricter version of Richard Dawkins. The worldview was that there are idiots out there who believe in Santa Claus and fairies and magic and elves, and we're not joining...”

“We don't sulk with everybody. We limit our sulks to a very particular person: the person who's supposed to love us and understand us. And we make this equation that if you love me, you're su...”

“I was uncomfortable writing fiction. My love was the personal essay, rather than the novel.”

“Everyone's more vulnerable than they seem, and I think men are more vulnerable. Once you get close to a man, the whole thing's a facade anyway. I think manhood is fragile.”