Alain de Botton Quotes

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Alain de Botton

Profession : Writer

Birth : December 20, 1969

I do think that travel can be part of a journey of inner maturation, but you've got to do it right.

Alain de Botton

My office. It's drab and boring but quiet.

Alain de Botton

I am not a foodie, thank goodness. I will eat pretty much anything. A lot of my friends are getting incredibly fussy about food and I see it as a bit of an affliction.

Alain de Botton

Parents become very good at not hearing the explicit words and listening instead to what the child means but doesn't yet know how to say: 'I'm lonely, in pain, frightened' - distress which then unfairly comes out as an attack on the safest, kindest, most reliable thing in the child's world: the parent.

Alain de Botton

I like working with people. I believe change can only come through collaboration.

Alain de Botton

There's a certain kind of insular, old-fashioned, upper-class Britishness that gives me the spooks. I am sure that comes from a boarding-school trauma.

Alain de Botton

Laughter is an important part of a good relationship. It's an immense achievement when you can move from your thinking that your partner is merely an idiot to thinking that they are that wonderfully complex thing called a loveable idiot. And often that means having a little bit of a sense of humour about their flaws.

Alain de Botton

I was an incredibly lonely, very alienated teenager.

Alain de Botton

I think of myself as quite a shy person. But when I'm curious about something, I'll go quite far to satisfy my curiosity.

Alain de Botton

A city like London is sociable in a sense that there are people gathering in bars and restaurants, concerts and lectures. Yet you can partake of all these experiences and never say hello to anyone new. And one of the things that all religions do is take groups of strangers into a space and say it is OK to talk to each other.

Alain de Botton

Everyone's more vulnerable than they seem, and I think men are more vulnerable. Once you get close to a man, the whole thing's a facade anyway. I think manhood is fragile.

Alain de Botton

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

Alain de Botton

I've tried to write about Heathrow before and been escorted off the premises.

Alain de Botton

There are people who say, 'Oh this guy is quite thick.' I think the reason is that, increasingly, I don't mind being simple in terms of literary expression. Others say, 'No, no, no. He went to Cambridge. He got a good degree. He must be Einstein.'

Alain de Botton

Most of the time, we make discoveries about how difficult people are at the moment when the difficulties have actually hurt us; therefore, we are not likely to be forgiving or sympathetic.

Alain de Botton

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.

Alain de Botton

Pick up any newspaper or magazine, open the TV, and you'll be bombarded with suggestions of how to have a successful life. Some of these suggestions are deeply unhelpful to our own projects and priorities - and we should take care.

Alain de Botton

Love is something that we need to learn.

Alain de Botton

Advertising is - quite often - alive to our real needs. It's just the products on offer might not be the things that will help us satisfy them.

Alain de Botton

Trying to be a sort of intellectual in the public arena is very irritating to people. They think, 'Why is this bugger on television?'

Alain de Botton