The difference between hope and despair is a different way o... - Alain de Botton

"Don't despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don't - surrender to events with hope."

"I passionately believe that's it's not just what you say that counts, it's also how you say it - that the success of your argument critically depends on your manner of presenting it."

"Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them."

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

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