Alain de Botton

Love is something that we need to learn. ”

The thing is that love gives us a ringside seat on somebody else's flaws, so of course you're gonna spot some things that kinda need to be mentioned. But often the romantic view is to say, 'If you loved me, you wouldn't criticise me.' Actually, true love is often about trying to teach someone how to be the best version of themselves. ”

We don't sulk with everybody. We limit our sulks to a very particular person: the person who's supposed to love us and understand us. And we make this equation that if you love me, you're supposed to understand me even if I don't explain what's wrong. ”

What is fascinating about marriage is why anyone wants to get married. ”

I'm also interested in the modern suggestion that you can have a combination of love and sex in a marriage - which no previous society has ever believed. ”

Often we think love is a feeling: that you spontaneously experience it. ”

We are properly ready for marriage when we are strong enough to embrace a life of frustration. ”

I fell in love with Norman Mailer's 'Of a Fire on the Moon', a description of the 1969 moon landing and the society that had produced NASA - and was inspired by him to begin a kind of anthropology of modern life. ”

What I do know from my life is the phenomenon of saying, 'This is too small a thing to argue about', but then nevertheless finding oneself in that argument. ”

Art can do the opposite of glamourise the unattainable: it can show us anew the genuine merit of life as we're forced to lead it. It is advertising for the things we really need. ”