Quotes from Francois Lelord

He had fallen in love with her emotions, and that was a very profound feeling indeed.

True wisdom would be the ability to live without this scenery, to be the same person even at the bottom of a well. But that, it has to be said, is not so easy.

The only shadow on my happiness is when I tell myself sometimes that as it's all going well, it can't last, that one day things won't be so good.

It's one thing thinking something and another thing knowing it.

happiness is a different thing altogether. If you try to achieve it, you have every chance of failing. And besides, how would you ever know that you'd achieved it? Of course one can't blame people, especially unhappy people, for wanting to be happier and setting themselves goals in order to try to escape from their unhappiness.

It is love that transports us, that fills us with joy! Love turns life into one long adventure, every encounter is a dazzling experience - well, not always, of course, but in actual fact, it is our less successful love affairs that enable us to appreciate the others. I think love protects us from one of the biggest problems facing the modern world: boredom.

People fall in love more easily when they are already troubled by another emotion because we know that any intense emotional state greatly increases the risk of falling in love.

Happiness. We're tearing our hair out to try to find a definition of it, for heaven's sake. Is it joy? People will tell you that it isn't, that joy is a fleeting emotion, a moment of happiness, which is always welcome, mind you. And then what about pleasure, huh? Oh, yes, that's easy, everybody knows what that is, but there again it doesn't last.

Edouard said that he didn't take Hector for a fool, but he could see that Hector had fallen in love, which was worse than being a fool.

Adeline was really rather charming, she always had a man in her life, but it never worked out: either they were nice but she didn't find them very exciting; or they were exciting but she didn't find them particularly nice, or they were neither nice nor exciting and she wondered why she was with them at all. She found a way of making the exciting men nicer and that was by leaving them. But then, they weren't exciting anymore either.

Or rather, he was sad because that morning he'd understood that he'd understood nothing, because while he still understood nothing he wasn't sad at all, but now that he'd understood that he'd understood nothing he felt sad, if you follow.

He had realised that it was Clara he loved, and that he loved her in many different ways. (Because there are even more ways of loving than there are ways of being happy, but it would take another book to explain them all.)

And since he was seeing more and more people who were unhappy for no apparent reason, he was becoming more and more tired, and even a little unhappy himself. He began to wonder if he was in the right profession, whether he was happy with life, whether he wasn't missing out on something. And then he felt very afraid because he wondered whether these unhappy people were contagious.

There's no point in looking before crossing the road if you don't look in the right direction.

Because they know that people will be kinder to a child who smiles.

He didn't necessarily think that it was okay, but when a psychiatrist says 'okay', it just means 'I understand what you're saying.

People who are afraid of death are afraid of lif

Did the squirrel realize how lucky he was to be there? Or on the contrary did he spend his life wondering whether he might not be better off somewhere else, or feeling that he didn't have the life he deserved? In the end, it depended on the comparisons the squirrel was able to make

Some people, very many actually, both men and women, complained of having enjoyed a very loving relationship with someone, but of no longer feeling the same way despite still being very fond of that person, with whom they generally lived.

Lesson no. 12: It's harder to be happy in a country run by bad people.

Basically, having a gift for happiness was a bit like being good at maths or games: it depended partly on the development of the brain after you were born, ad even before, but also on how your parents or other adults had brought you up when you were small. And of course on your own efforts and subsequent encounters. 'Nature or nurture,' said the professor. 'Whichever way, the parents are to blame!

Be very wary of people who declare that they're going to create heaven on earth, they almost invariably create hell.)

Lesson no. 1: Making comparisons can spoil your happiness.

Exciting happiness is joy, celebration, travelling, being in bed with a woman you desire.