Leslie > Leslie's Quotes

“Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.”
― Alain de Botton

“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.”
― Alain de Botton

“One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on.”
― Alain de Botton

“Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved.”
― Alain de Botton, On Love

“To one's enemies: "I hate myself more than you ever could.”
― Alain de Botton

“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?”
― Alain de Botton, On Love

“To be loved by someone is to realize how much they share the same needs that lie at the heart of our own attraction to them. Albert Camus suggested that we fall in love with people because, from the outside, they look so whole, physically whole and emotionally 'together' - when subjectively we feel dispersed and confused. We would not love if there were no lack within us, but we are offended by the discovery of a similar lack in the other. Expecting to find the answer, we find only the duplicate of our own problem.”
― Alain de Botton, On Love

“The partner truly best suited to us is not the one who miraculously happens to share every taste, but the one who can negotiate differences in taste with intelligence and grace.”
― Alain de Botton, The Course of Love

“It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.”
― Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness

“Being incomprehensible offers unparalleled protection against having nothing to say...but writing with simplicity requires courage, for there is a danger that one will be overlooked, dismissed as simpleminded by those with a tenacious belief that the impassable prose is a hallmark of intelligence.”
― Alain de Botton, The Consolations of Philosophy