When Chloe and the protagonist (I suppose his name is Alain — we are never completely sure of that) first met in a chapter titled “ Romantic Fatalism”, De Botton wrote about our motivations in falling in love as a desire to invent a destiny so as to spare ourselves the anxiety that no one has written our story or assured our loves, that we are eager to locate inside another person a perfection that eludes within ourselves, and ultimately “ hope to maintain a precarious faith in our species.” (“Idealisation”)

Aitkenhead, Decca (3 April 2011). "How can you be a militant atheist? It's like sleeping furiously". The Guardian. London, UK. Archived from the original on 1 May 2011 . Retrieved 3 April 2011. Barber, Lynn (22 March 2009). "Office affairs". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712 . Retrieved 18 February 2023. Whether the story is completely true or not is beside the point. What's important is that you can relate your personal experience - or that of your friends - to elements in the story. If this harsh, graceless behavior could be truly understood for what it is, it would be revealed not as rejection or indifference, but as a strangely distorted, yet very real, plea for tenderness. You would expect that, by age, you would find answers to solve at least, - half of the mysteries that ruled your Univers.

Popular quotes

Charlie Brooker (January 2005). "The art of drivel". The Guardian. London . Retrieved 11 July 2009. ...a pop philosopher who's forged a lucrative career stating the bleeding obvious in a series of poncey, lighter-than-air books aimed at smug Sunday supplement pseuds looking for something clever-looking to read on the plane In The Architecture of Happiness [14] (2006), he discusses the nature of beauty in architecture and how it is related to the well-being and general contentment of the individual and society. He describes how architecture affects people every day, though people rarely pay particular attention to it. A good portion of the book discusses how human personality traits are reflected in architecture. He defends Modernist architecture, and chastises the pseudo-vernacular architecture of housing, especially in the UK. "The best modern architecture," he argues, "doesn't hold a mirror up to nature, though it may borrow a pleasing shape or expressive line from nature's copybook. It gives voice to aspirations and suggests possibilities. The question isn't whether you'd actually like to live in a Le Corbusier home, but whether you'd like to be the kind of person who'd like to live in one." [ citation needed] You like hearing his take on things. Since AB is introspective and curious, he is able to describe his experiences to you in fascinating detail. Since he studied philosophy, he can relate his insights to you in a wider frame of thought. A man and a woman meet over casual conversation on a flight from Paris to London, and so begins a love story – from first kiss to first argument, elation to heartbreak, and everything in between. Each stage of the relationship is illuminated with startling clarity, as Alain de Botton explores emotions often felt but rarely understood. Oh god, what a slimy, patronising, pseudo-intellectual “romantic” De Botton was. The fact this book was published at all, let alone accoladed, says everything about how society dismisses the immature, condescending treatment of women by men.

de Botton, Alain (24 December 2011). "An atheist at Christmas: Oh come all ye faithless". The Guardian. London. He revels in considering all aspects of love, including -- or rather, especially -- the mundane and everyday and trivial. Naomi Wolf (March 2009). "The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton". The Times. London . Retrieved 11 July 2009. ...this book examining "work" sounds often as if it has been written by someone who never had a job that was not voluntary, or at least pleasant. So what will de Botton do next? He has already started his next book. But he is keen to move beyond books, to develop other projects, especially The School of Life that he set up last year in Bloomsbury. It is a former shop with books for sale on the ground floor and a big salon downstairs where he and his fellow teachers hold seminars on subjects such as Love, Politics, Work. The aim of the school is to teach "ideas to live by" or, he says, "to inspire people to change their lives through culture". Doesn't it attract loads of nutters? "That was a fear at the beginning and there are a few who want to come in every day and sit and talk, but it's only maybe 10 people who've caused trouble." He hopes that eventually there can be Schools of Life all round the world - they have already had offers to open branches in New York and Australia, but feel they want to "road-test" the idea a bit longer. Sarah Treleaven (12 June 2008). "How to be Happy: How Does This Building Make You Feel?". AOL (interview). Archived from the original on 11 October 2009 . Retrieved 10 June 2022.

About the author

Why did he want to write about work? "Partly I think as a kind of intellectual challenge because I think that work doesn't appear in books as much as it should, or in novels anyway - people fall in love and have sex and that's all they ever do, they never go to the office. Or they're a writer or a psychoanalyst or something. And in television dramas, they're always doctors or lawyers - there's quite a standard vision of what work is. But work is so much more varied than that. I think my book is in praise of the enormous ingenuity that human beings bring to the job of being busy."

The Consolations of Philosophy". complete-review.com. Archived from the original on 16 April 2010 . Retrieved 23 March 2010. De Botton's idea of bringing philosophy to the masses and presenting it in an unthreatening manner (and showing how it might be useful in anyone's life), is admirable; the way he has gone about it is less so. In the Essays in Love, the narrator is smitten by ChloeDe Botton attended the Dragon School where English became his primary language. He was later sent to board and study at Harrow School, a public school in England. He has often described his childhood as that of a shy child living in boarding schools. Birnbaum, Robert (1 September 2002). "Alain de Botton Interview (The Art of Travel)". Identity Theory . Retrieved 18 February 2023. Mahal mo ba ako dahil kailangan mo ako o kailangan mo ako dahil mahal mo ako?” (“Do you love me because you need me or do you need me because you love me?”) is what the character of Claudine Barretto asks the character of Piolo Pasqual in Olivia M. Lamasan’s 2004 movie Milan. This is my favorite Tagalog love story movie and this question is one of those that Alain de Botton (born 1969) tried to answer in his book On Love: A Novel (2006), also earlier published as Essays on Love in 1993.