Quote

Writing a book has about it some of the anxiety of telling a joke and having to wait several years to know whether or not it was funny.

Alain de Botton

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Alain de Botton
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: December 20
Journalist
Philosopher
Publisher
Writer
City of Zurich
Alain De Botton
Waiting
Whether
Funny
Joke
Book
Several
Writing
Anxiety
Years
Jokes
Wait
Telling

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Much of the really serious trouble in the world gets going with a sense of humiliation.
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Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories: the story of our quest for sexual love and the story of our quest for love from the world.
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There is real danger of a disconnect between what's on your business card and who you are deep inside, and it's not a disconnect that the world is ready to be patient with.
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Most good thinking has its origin in fear.
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Our minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied, voices that may drown out the faint sounds emitted by our souls and distract us from the careful, arduous task of accurately naming our priorities.
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How generous was it to offer gifts to people one knew would never accept them?
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It is perhaps sad books that best console us when we are sad, and to lonely service stations that we should drive when there is no one for us to hold or love.
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Insomnia is a glamorous term for thoughts you forgot to have in the day.
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Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved.
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There is always the option of being emotionally lazy, that is, of quoting.
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Unhappiness can stem from having only one perspective to play with.
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Most anger stems from feelings of weakness, sadness and fear: hard to remember when one is at the receiving end of its defiant roar.
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Man seems merely dust postponed: the sublime as an encounter - pleasurable, intoxicating, even - with human weakness in the face of strength, age and size of the universe.
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A simple problem of arithmetic: there are far more ambitions than there are grand destinies available.
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Curiosity takes ignorance seriously - and is confident enough to admit when it's in the dark. It is aware of not knowing. And then it sets out to do something about it.
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Taking architecture seriously therefore makes some singular and strenuous demands upon us...It means conceding that we are inconveniently vulnerable to the colour of our wallpaper and that our sense of purpose may be derailed by an unfortunate bedspread
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There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed.
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Being funny should be an incidental byproduct of trying to get to something truthful, not a destination in itself.
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Writing isn’t a career choice. It’s self-medication that over time precipitates the madness it was meant to ward off.
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Work is most fulfilling when you're at the comfortable, exciting edge of not quite knowing what you are doing.
Alain de Botton