Alain de Botton

All tours are filled with humiliation. My publisher once hired a private jet to fly me to a venue where 1,000 people were waiting. It almost bankrupted him.

We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who would otherwise look straight through us.

I assemble my ideas in pieces on a computer file, then gradually find a place for them on a piece of scaffolding I erect.

Action is the antidote to despair.

I found that with depression, one of the most important things you could realise is that you're not alone.

Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die.