My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
I was uncomfortable writing fiction. My love was the personal essay, rather than the novel. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
One kind of good book should leave you asking: how did the author know that about me? — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“How mean to buy only as many books as one will actually have time to read.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
People who go on to be writers are those who can forgive themselves the horror of the first draft. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Good books put a finger on emotions that are deeply our own - but that we could never have described on our… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad, and to lonely service stations that we should drive… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others - because it's a tool to help us live and die with… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
I always feel that I am writing for somebody who is bright but impatient. Someone who doesn't have unlimited time. That is… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
We should read other people's books in order to learn what we feel; it is our own thoughts we should be developing,… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Becoming a writer wasn't a choice (there would have been far more worthwhile things to do); it was the best, most fruitful… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
When I'm writing, I write all day. Other days, I sit around thinking. Or I run around from one meeting to another,… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Being incomprehensible offers unparalleled protection against having nothing to say...but writing with simplicity requires courage, for there is a danger that one… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The idea of a book that can make a change to your life, that can affect your perspective, is a beautiful and… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The number one person who needs my books is me. I'm not some sort of disinterested guru who has worked life out… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Every skillful writer foregrounds notable aspects of experience, details that might otherwise be lost in the mass of data that continuously bathes… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Literature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system-the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side-they make… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“We had often read the same books at night in the same bed, and later realized that they had touched us in… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
We are sensitized by the books we read. And the more books we read, and the deeper their lessons sink into us,… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Le Corbusier is an outstanding writer. His ideas achieved their impact in large measure because he could write so convincingly. His style… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
There are things that are not spoken about in polite society. Very quickly in most conversations you'll reach a moment where someone… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“...a book provides for a distillation of our sporadic mind, a record of its most vital manifestations, a concentration of inspired moments… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
It looks like it’s wasting time, but literature is actually the ultimate time-saver - because it gives us access to a range… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Heartache may be bad for the soul, but it's great for bookshops. It's when we are at our lowest romantic ebb that… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Books should be full of stuff you could never say to people in public.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“As we write, so we build: to keep a record of what matters to us.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
It seems the only way to write a half decent book is to worry oneself sick on an hourly basis that one… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
A great writer picks up on those things that matter. It’s almost like their radar is attuned to the most significant moments. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“It is common to assume that we are dealing with a highly intelligent book when we cease to understand it.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“It is surely significant that the adults who feature in children's books are rarely, if ever, Regional Sales Managers or Building Services… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books written because authors couldn't find anyone to talk… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
I waste most of the day, then finally start to write around 3 P.M., totally disgusted with myself for my wasteful nature. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Despite the best efforts of critics and the hopes of authors, our tastes in books are probably as inherent & unbudgeable as… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the number of Books that were written because authors couldn't find anyone… — Alain De Botton Copy Share Image
Writing isn’t a career choice. It’s self-medication that over time precipitates the madness it was meant to ward off. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
The greatest compliment I get about my writing is when people say, 'How did you know so much about me?' And of… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“To be mature is, we're told, to move beyond possessiveness. Jealousy is for babies. The mature person knows that no one owns anyone.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share
“He feared that by leaving her he would ruin her life - so he stayed, and did just that.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share
You have to be quite heavily invested in someone to do them the honour of telling them you're annoyed with them. — Alain de Botton Copy Share
“The Anxiety of Sunday afternoon: your unlived lives and infinite possibility pressing upon the constraints of reality.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share
Those who divorce aren't necessarily the most unhappy, just those neatly able to believe their misery is caused by one other person. — Alain de Botton Copy Share
“We could not be fulfilled if we weren't inauthentic some of the time—inauthentic, that is, in relation to such things as our passing desires… — Alain de Botton Copy Share
“Insofar as we appreciate order, it is when we perceive it as being accompanied by complexity, when we feel that a variety of elements… — Alain de Botton Copy Share
I like the values associated with a medical family - common sense, being practical but also thoughtful. — Alain de Botton Copy Share
“Anyone who urgently needs us deserves, in the true book of love, to be our friend.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share
“We can then recognize that we invented religions to serve two central needs which continue to this day and which secular society has not… — Alain de Botton Copy Share
“Half the ingratitude and complacency in the world down to how slowly and imperceptibly most good and bad things unfold.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share
It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things. — Alain de Botton Copy Share
“Does what is praised becomes better? Does an emerald become worse if it isn't praised? And what a gold, ivory, a flower or a… — Alain de Botton Copy Share
The bourgeois thinkers of the eighteenth century thus turned Aristotle's formula on its head: satisfactions which the Greek philosopher had identified with leisure were… — Alain de Botton Copy Share
Reputation matters so much only because people so seldom think for themselves. — Alain de Botton Copy Share
