Alain de Botton

I think people want to get married to end their emotional uncertainty. In a way, they want to end powerful feelings, or certainly the negative ones.

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.

What we typically call love is only the start of love. Our understanding of love has been hijacked and beguiled by its first distractingly moving moments.

I love novels where not much 'happens' but where the interest is in the ideas and analyses of characters.

I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actually be an excuse for not living.

You will often be in despair. You will sometimes think it's the worst decision in your life. That's fine. That's not a sign your marriage has gone wrong. It's a sign that it's normal; it's on track. And many of the hopes that took you into the marriage will have to die in order for the marriage to continue.

I love the idea of a university as away from capitalist values, where people can do things that don't immediately have to pay their way. It's like a monastery in a way, and that beautiful refuge has been destroyed by dogma about what this stuff is for.

Laughter is an important part of a good relationship. It's an immense achievement when you can move from your thinking that your partner is merely an idiot to thinking that they are that wonderfully complex thing called a loveable idiot. And often that means having a little bit of a sense of humour about their flaws.

The death of marriage has been announced so often and would seem so normal, in a sense. So what's surprising is the sheer longevity and tenacity of this institution.

I was uncomfortable writing fiction. My love was the personal essay, rather than the novel.

We must study love the way we study anything else that matters.

Compatibility is an achievement of love; it shouldn't be its precondition.