Alain de Botton Quotes

I'd rather be screwed up with you than smooth with anybody else.

The real gift of love is self disclosure.

Something about telling that story made my gut grow back together." What?" Oh, nothing. Just thinking out loud." That's who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of." The people who've been in your secret hiding places." The people you bite your thumb in front of." Hi." Hi." ..." ..." Wow. My first Lindsey." My second Colin." That was fun. Let's try it again." Sold." ..." ..." ...".

Fear is the great enemy of intimacy. Fear makes us run away from each other or cling to each other but does not create true intimacy.

The more connections you and your lover make, not just between your bodies, but between your minds, your hearts, and your souls, the more you will strengthen the fabric of your relationship, and the more real moments you will experience together.

If fear is the great enemy of intimacy, love is its true friend.

Through my research, I found that vulnerability is the glue that holds relationships together. It's the magic sauce.

My best advice would be that you have to be vulnerable with each other. Like, everyone says you have to be honest, you have to communicate; like, yes, of course, but you gotta be willing to be vulnerable.

Love casts out fear, but we have to get over the fear in order to get close enough to love them.

A conversation goes sometimes into personal things and that's nicer. You look to each other and you have a different picture, you get into a relationship.

If you can fart in front of somebody, you know that they love you.

Sometimes, when you act with someone in an intimate capacity, you have to ask vulnerable questions to speed up intimacy - but that's artificial.

You can only be loved to the extent that you are known.

Roland, love means not being afraid to let yourself go, trusting that I will desire everything you have to offer. -Rosaline (Roland's love)

When you really love someone, you must accept their part of mystery. And that’s why you love them.

Trust and trust alone should lead us to love

When I can really open myself up to someone and show someone who I really am, it's amazing when it happens.

Always before, I just said no, left it solidly there. I waver now. I want to share everything with him. Want to know what he knows, feel what he feels, share the same space he's in.

For a marriage relationship to flourish, there must be intimacy. It takes an enormous amount of courage to say to your spouse, 'This is me. I'm not proud of it - in fact, I'm a little embarrassed by it - but this is who I am.

...because when people have seen you at their worst, you don't have to put on the mask as much.

Honesty is the only way with anyone, when you'll be so close as to be living inside each other's skins.

Come sleep with me: We won't make Love,Love will make us.

An intimate relationship is one that allows you to be yourself.

Really true intimacy is rare and it depends on other things besides sex.

How easy it must be when you had no secrets from the person you lived with." - Eclipse, page 208