Good books put a finger on emotions that are deeply our own – but that we could never have described on our own.
ALAIN DE BOTTONOut of the millions of people we live among, most of whom we habitually ignore and are ignored by in turn, there are always a few that hold hostage our capacity for happiness, whom we could recognize by their smell alone and whom we would rather die than be without.
More Alain de Botton Quotes
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People who readily accept the need for a gym will resist that their personalities might need some work too.
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My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane.
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It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.
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We often lose our tempers not with those who are actually to blame; just with those who love us enough to forgive us our foul moods.
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Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.
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It is striking how much more seriously we are likely to be taken after we have been dead a few centuries.
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An argument in a couple: 2 people attempting to introduce each other to important truths – by panicked shouting.
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Because the rhythm of conversation makes no allowance for dead periods, because the presence of others calls for continuous responses, we are left to regret the inanity of what we say, and the missed opportunity of what we do not.
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It seems that most of us could benefit from a brush with a near-fatal disaster to help us recognise the important things that we are too defeated or embittered to recognise from day to day.
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Curiosity takes ignorance seriously – and is confident enough to admit when it’s in the dark. It is aware of not knowing. And then it sets out to do something about it.
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The good parent: someone who doesn’t mind, for a time, being hated by their children.
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The only people we can think of as normal are those we don’t yet know very well.
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Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.
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Writing isn’t a career choice. It’s self-medication that over time precipitates the madness it was meant to ward off.
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The media insists on taking what someone didn’t mean to say as being far closer to the truth than what they did.
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