Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.

A good half of the art of living is resilience. Alain de Botton

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

Alain de Botton

Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go. Alain de Botton

We are sensitized by the books we read. And the more books we read, and the deeper their lessons sink into us, the more pairs of glasses we have. And those glasses enable us to see things we would have otherwise missed. Alain de Botton

Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason. Alain de Botton

Maturity: knowing where you’re crazy, trying to warn others of the fact and striving to keep yourself under control. Alain de Botton

It takes a serious lack of imagination to have an entirely clean conscience. Alain de Botton

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. Alain de Botton

There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life. Alain de Botton

There may be significant things to learn about people by looking at what annoys them most. Alain de Botton

Adulthood involves learning to conclusively bury a great many of our hopes. Alain de Botton

Laughter is an important part of a good relationship. Alain de Botton

Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself. Alain de Botton

It isn’t normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement. Alain de Botton

The only people we can think of as normal are those we don’t yet know very well.

Alain de Botton