Quotes from Alain de Botton

We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.

I like the values associated with a medical family - common sense, being practical but also thoughtful.

Most anger stems from feelings of weakness, sadness and fear: hard to remember when one is at the receiving end of its defiant roar.

Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.

The more familiar two people become, the more the language they speak together departs from that of the ordinary, dictionary-defined discourse. Familiarity creates a new language, an in-house language of intimacy that carries reference to the story the two lovers are weaving together and that cannot be readily understood by others.