Quotes from Alain de Botton

Parent and child may both love, but - unbeknown to the child - each party is on a different end of the axis. This is why, in adulthood, when we first long for 'love', what we mean is that we want to 'be loved' as we were once loved by a parent.

When you look at the Moon, you think, "I'm really small. What are my problems?" It sets things into perspective. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often.

Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.

Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.

We fall in love because we long to escape from ourselves with someone as beautiful, intelligent, and witty as we are ugly, stupid, and dull. But what if such a perfect being should one day turn around and decide they will love us back? We can only be somewhat shocked-how can they be as wonderful as we had hoped when they have the bad taste to approve of someone like us?

It is in books, poems, paintings which often give us the confidence to take seriously feelings in ourselves that we might otherwise never have thought to acknowledge.

People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.

Love is a skill, not just an enthusiasm.

Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books written because authors couldn't find anyone to talk to.

My greatest joy comes from creativity: from feeling that I have been able to identify a certain aspect of human nature and crystallise a phenomenon in words.

Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude - not a punishment for making money.

The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.