I know a lot about writing, but I don't know much about how other industries work. I've tried to use my naivety… — 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
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
In Britain, because I live here, I can also run into problems of envy and competition. But all this is just in… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
“You can tell a paragraph is slipping out of control when there's a runaway use of the word 'hence.” — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writers. — 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
“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
