Quotes from Alain de Botton

Gaffe-focused journalism: revenge of intelligent people who know true evils are out there but lack the access/time to get to them.

Just be yourself' is about the worst advice you can give some people.

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.

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 that nonsense.

There is militaristic-hegemonic-plutocratic side of the U.S. which is getting out of hand and threatens to corrupt the whole republic. I remain a deeply concerned, committed admirer, but also a very worried one.

I guess my overall life plan is to think about issues that concern me and try to use culture generally to make sense of them. I'm more worried that I'm going to die before I've had time.

Parents don't reveal how often they have bitten their tongue, fought back the tears, or been too tired to take off their clothes after a day of childcare. The parent loves, but they do not expect the favour to be returned in any significant way.

In 'Art as Therapy', we argue that art is a tool that can variously help to inspire, console, redeem, guide, comfort, expand and reawaken us.

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

I believe that art is a tool and that, like all tools, it has functions. I also think it is important to know what the tool is for so that we can better know how and when to use it.

The feeling one has no time to get anything done provides the pressure that guarantees one does get some things done.

We are all more intelligent than we are capable, and awareness of the insanity of love has never saved anyone from the disease.

True love is a lack of desire to check one's smartphone in another's presence.

Must being in love always mean being in pain?

One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy.

It's hard loving those who don't much like themselves: "If you're so great, why would you think I'm so great.

As an atheist, I think there are lots of things religions get up to which are of value to non-believers - and one of those things is trying to be a bit better than we normally manage to be.

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.

Becoming a writer wasn't a choice (there would have been far more worthwhile things to do); it was the best, most fruitful way of being a bit ill.

I think I have grown impatient with just being a writer.

In Britain, because I live here, I can also run into problems of envy and competition. But all this is just in a day's work for a writer. You can't put stuff out there without someone calling you a complete fool. Oh, well.

Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writers.

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 pay to the formal aspects of their work.

My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane.