More quotes by Alain de Botton

"The difference between hope and despair is a different way of telling stories from the same facts."
"Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us."
"The price we have paid for expecting to be so much more than our ancestors is a perpetual anxiety that we are far from being all we might be."
"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."
"The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness or friendship drives me nuts. I can't accept that."