“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
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
“He [Wordsworth] invited his readers to abandon their usual perspective and to consider for a time how the world might look through… — 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
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
“In literature, too, we admire prose in which a small and astutely arranged set of words has been constructed to carry a… — 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
I am conscious of trying to stretch the boundaries of non-fiction writing. It's always surprised me how little attention many non-fiction writers… — 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
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
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
The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness… — 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
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
An understandable hunger for potential clients tempts many [career counseling therapists] to overpromise, like creative writing teachers who, out of greed or… — 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
“If we are inclined to forget how much there is in the world besides that which we anticipate, then works of art… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Writing a book has about it some of the anxiety of telling a joke and having to wait several years to know… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“A storyteller who provided us with such a profusion of details would rapidly grow maddening. Unfortunately, life itself often subscribes to this… — 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
“Reading Proust nearly silenced Virginia Woolf. She loved his novel, but loved it rather too much. There wasn’t enough wrong with it—a… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly. — 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 Image
“He feared that by leaving her he would ruin her life - so he stayed, and did just that.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
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 Image
“The Anxiety of Sunday afternoon: your unlived lives and infinite possibility pressing upon the constraints of reality.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
I like the values associated with a medical family - common sense, being practical but also thoughtful. — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“Anyone who urgently needs us deserves, in the true book of love, to be our friend.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
