Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.
Alain de BottonThe largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness".
Alain de BottonThere is a devilishly direct relationship between the significance of an idea and how nervous we become at the prospect of having to think about it.
Alain de BottonIt is this idea 'decency' should be attached to wealth -and 'indecency'' to poverty - that forms the core of one strand of skeptical complaint against the modern status-ideal. Why should failure to make money be taken as a sign of an unconditionally flawed human being rather than of a fiasco in one particular area if the far larger, more multifaceted, project of leading a good life? Why should both wealth and poverty be read as the predominant guides to an individual's morals ?
Alain de Botton