Alain de Botton Quotes

Go on and close your eyes, go on imagine me there She's got similar features with longer hair And if that's what it takes to get you through Go on and close your eyes it shouldn't bother you

When you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed toward the act of jumping and the mask falls so that the real person appears.

Truth always has a bewitching savor of newness in it, and novelty at the first taste recalls that original sweetness to the tongue; but alas for him who would make the one a substitute for the other.

You keep distracting me,” I tell her. “All I’m doing is sitting here talking to you!” “Exactly,” I say, and I smile at her.j

When I have the beard on I have people behind me in traffic honking their horn. I'm thinking "how in the world?" But it's the beard - it's kind of the stand out thing.

Most of the time, if you're not really paying attention, you're someplace else. So your child might say, "Daddy, I want this," and you might say, "Just a minute, I'm busy." Now that's no big deal-we all get busy, and kids frequently ask for attention. But over your child's entire youth, you may have an enormous number of such moments to be really, fully present, but because you thought you were busy, you didn't see the opportunities these moments presented. . . . People carry around an enormous amount of grief because they missed the little things.

There was once a great actor named George C. Scott. He was on stage in the Delacourt Theater in Central Park, where they do Shakespeare every summer, and he was playing Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. At one point he took the robes he was wearing and just started flipping them up in the air, out of nowhere. And later, an actor said to him, "What was that, George, what were you doing?" And he said, "They were sleeping." You're always trying to catch them.

We usually don't look. We overlook.

Drama often obscures the real issues

One great cause of failure of young men in business is lack of concentration.

A piece of creative writing, like a day-dream, is a continuation of, and a substitute for, what was once the play of childhood.

If I'm improvising and I'm not doing well it's because I'm not listening very well. Either I'm overly concerned with something or I'm drifting or maybe I'm too stoned but I'm not getting a clear signal.

In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention.

who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you

We have these 100 mms delays, you know, our attention is on our PDA, we're always in a rush. We drive around in these 4,000 pound metal wombs, these 4,000 pound containment systems to protect us from these 6,000 pound cars from smacking us.

Never take away anything if you have nothing better to offer

I believe there is no more creative medium than photography to recreate the living world of our time. Photography gladly accepts the challenge because it is at home in its element: namely, realism - real life - the now.

Are you okay?" she whispers, giggling. Me? Oh sure. You might have to carry me out of here, though." What happened?" I created a distraction." I gathered that." Step stool, encyclopedias, floor." I see. Well, I can't thank you enough." Sure you can. Help me flunk enough tests, so I drop out of the 'torian range." Can't you just tell Abernethy that you have a reputation as a dumbshit to keep up, and you don't want the attention?" Flunking is more fun.

Did you guys take enough freakin' pictures already?

While photography is the easiest medium in which to be competent, it is the hardest in which to develop an idiosyncratic personal vision.

The writing doesn't distract me while I'm drawing and vice versa. I can devote my full attention to each.

We're living at a time when attention is the new currency: With hundreds of TV channels, billions of Web sites, podcasts, radio shows, music downloads and social networking, our attention is more fragmented than ever before.

My nephew has HDADHD. High Definition Attention Deficit Disorder. He can barely pay attention, but when he does it's unbelievably clear.

We forget to remain focused on the things that really matter.

Most people don't know how to listen because the major part of their attention is taken up by thinking.