Learning to give up on perfection may be just about the most romantic move any of us could make.

Next quotes

• Alain de Botton:

  When a restaurant is too popular, it starts to harm the reason you are there.

• Alain de Botton:

  I remember going to university, and the people who'd left home for the first time looked at the foo

• Alain de Botton:

  There's a certain kind of insular, old-fashioned, upper-class Britishness that gives me the spooks.

• Alain de Botton:

  Among adults, we can admit that of course, characters are creations. They aren't real people.

• Alain de Botton:

  There's a constant tension between the excitement of new people and security with one person. If yo

• Alain de Botton:

  I think of myself as quite a shy person. But when I'm curious about something, I'll go quite far to

• Alain de Botton:

  I was an incredibly lonely, very alienated teenager.

• Alain de Botton:

  I like the values associated with a medical family - common sense, being practical but also thought

• Alain de Botton:

  A gray V-neck pullover from Gap. I have 30 of them.

• Alain de Botton:

  My office. It's drab and boring but quiet.