"In an ideal world, marriage vows would be entirely rewritten. At the altar, a couple would speak thus: "We accept not to panic when, some years from… - Alain de Botton

the greater part of our anxieties stems from an exaggerated sense of the importance of our own projects and concerns. We are tortured by our ideals and by a punishingly high-minded sense of the gravity of what we are doing.

Arguments are like eels: however logical, they may slip from the minds weak grasp unless fixed there by imagery and style.

Though we sometimes suspect that people are hiding things from us, it is not until we are in love that we feel an urgency to press our inquiries, and in seeking answers, we are apt to discover the extent to which people disguise and conceal their real lives.