Without sex, we would be dangerously invulnerable. We might believe we were not ridiculous. We wouldn't know rejection and humiliation so intimately.
Alain de BottonHappiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.
Alain de BottonMy writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane.
Alain de BottonWhen Proust urges us to evaluate the world properly, he repeatedly reminds us of the value of modest scenes.
Alain de BottonBlind impatience is equally evident in the fruit section. Our ancestors might have delighted in the occasional handful of berries found on the underside of a bush in late summer, viewing it as a sign of the unexpected munificence of a divine creator, but we became modern when we gave up on awaiting sporadic gifts from above and sought to render any pleasing sensation immediately and repeatedly available.
Alain de Botton