Alain de Botton

There are people who say, 'Oh this guy is quite thick.' I think the reason is that, increasingly, I don't mind being simple in terms of literary expression. Others say, 'No, no, no. He went to Cambridge. He got a good degree. He must be Einstein.' ”

Becoming a writer wasn't a choice (there would have been far more worthwhile things to do); it was the best, most fruitful way of being a bit ill. ”

I was an incredibly lonely, very alienated teenager. ”

I think I have grown impatient with just being a writer. ”

Never, ever become a writer. It's a nightmare. ”

Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books that were written because authors couldn't find anyone to talk to. ”

Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writers. ”

There's a certain kind of insular, old-fashioned, upper-class Britishness that gives me the spooks. I am sure that comes from a boarding-school trauma. ”

I do think that travel can be part of a journey of inner maturation, but you've got to do it right. ”

Where is instruction in relationships, in the management of career, in the raising of children, in the pursuit of friendship, in the wise approach to anxiety and death? All this sort of stuff I craved to learn about when I was a student and down to this day. ”