It was no longer her absence that wounded me, but my growing indifference to it. Forgetting, however calming, was also a reminder of infidelity to what I had at one time held so dear.
Alain de Botton
Related 38. “A wet bird never flies at night.” (My grandfather said that to me when I was a child and wa... JAMES C. DOBSON I had crossed de line of which I had so long been dreaming. I was free; but dere was no one to welco... HARRIET TUBMAN It was my first time on the ice, so every time I did something, I obviously wasn't doing it fantasti... LOUIS BAR It is precisely when we hear little from our partner which frightens, shocks, or sickens us that we ... ALAIN DE BOTTON One good thing about forgetting is that you can no longer worry about what ever it was you forgot. UNKNOWN And along with indifference to space, there was an even more complete indifference to time. "There s... ALDOUS HUXLEY I was in so much pain. I had no idea what was happening to me. I was scared and fearful. Then a nurs... LARRY DOSSEY It was cold and barren. It was no longer the view that I remembered. The sunshine of her presence wa... WILKIE COLLINS Absolutely devout in her complete care of my body, she had only taught me to be weak and voiceless. ... ASPEN MATIS Nikki (Garrett) was my inspiration. She told me before that final at bat it didn't matter what I had... AMY HALE What is it that makes you so angry, bothers you so deeply, that you're compelled to act? CRAIG GROESCHEL If I had it my way, Harper and I wouldn't be standing in this room right now, we wouldn't be pressed... MOLLY MCADAMS I had become so accustomed to succeeding that I no longer even remembered what it was like to fail. OPRAH WINFREY We are humiliated by what is powerful and mean, but awed by what is powerful and noble. ALAIN DE BOTTON She liked to imagine that when she passed, the world looked after her, but she also knew how anonymo... ALICE SEBOLD It was not only Odette's indifference, however, that he must take pains to circumvent; it was also, ... MARCEL PROUST My homeland,' says the guest, 'no longer exists. My homeland was Poland, Vienna, this house, the bar... SáNDOR MáRAI What are you doing?" Alain asked. "Starting a fire, of course." Mari held up the thing in her h... JACK CAMPBELL I am no longer in love with her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting ... PABLO NERUDA He had threatened my parents. I had to remember that. Still, it was really hard to stay mad at a wou... DARYNDA JONES I held her close to me with my eyes closed, wonering if anything in my life had ever been this perfe... NICHOLAS SPARKS When I read 'Stand By Me,' it was like, 'This is a look back at the same time period whe... ROB REINER My time at Wofford was very dear to me. I chose to go there because the academics were so strong. I ... BRENDA JACKSON He, too, stood looking at her for a moment--and it seemed to her that it was not a look of greeting ... AYN RAND It was the first time I'd really realized I'd lost my soul and that the beauty of not having a soul ... MAGGIE STIEFVATER Be to her, Persephone, All the things I might not be; Take her head upon your knee. S... EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference which is, at least, half infidelity. EDMUND BURKE Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference, which is, at least, half infidelity EDMUND BURKE My swing felt great so I was firing at every pin no matter where it was. I had a few chances but it ... ANTHONY WALL I was given baby doll toys myself, and they proved a stark reminder that my life was expected to rev... BETH DITTO We stared at each other for several moments, neither of us speaking or moving, and then I was in fro... JENNIFER L. ARMENTROUT I had my sights set on first for so long. When it was no longer a possibility it was definitely a le... GREGG NURRENBERN It was a time of a lot of political debate and strongly held views. I was a Canadian, but I listened... JAMES FLAHERTY I've inherited a sense of that loss from my parents because it was so palpable all the time whil... JHUMPA LAHIRI I think that going to the beach as a child, being in the water and smelling that salt air and hearin... BRIAN SKERRY I held her close to me with my eyes closed, wondering if anything in my life had ever been this perf... NICHOLAS SPARKS To change yourself you have to move from where you are and take a step, then you have to be willing ... BRENT M. JONES I had travelled to a lot of cities in Europe before, but Prague was special. It held a mysterious at... ARFI LAMBA Years ago I had realized I was blaming myself for it. People and doctors would tell me it wasn't my ... ROBERT ANTHONY It was pretty tough. I had no one to practice with, and it was just Coach beating up on me. I was th... KYLE ZIGELSKY At the very beginning of my career, when I opened my business in Italy, I was also a ranked tennis p... OLEG CASSINI Then I looked right at Mama, for the first time in what seemed like forever, and she wasn't looking ... KATHERINE HANNIGAN I think I had kind of an advantage. When I was growing up, my dad had just got out of jail and he ha... CHRIS ISAAK No one in my family or my circle of friends had ever had to confront something like this. Jamie was ... NICHOLAS SPARKS Where did he go when he left us? I spied the new journal he had started using just last week and hel... AMY TAN But no one except Lucy knew that as it circled the mast it had whispered to her, "Courage, dear hear... C.S. LEWIS 'm so fortunate to have done what I love to do for so long, but the day I retired was one of the... CARL LEWIS As time begins to pass, I have come to find that what I thought was, wasn't what I thought was so. ASTRAEA L. SKYLAR We may claim to believe in God, but we don't want to believe so much that it makes us different. CRAIG GROESCHEL She always believed love was good and hate was much better. But, indifference would’ve made her a ... A.A. GUPTE No mistakes, I'd promised myself that i would make no mistakes, no matter how minimal they seemed. i... STEPHENIE MEYER It was just very calming, I became less anxious about what my next move was. I think it gave me brea... COLSON WHITEHEAD Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it SARA SHEPARD After all my erstwhile dear, my no longer cherished; Need we say it was not love, just because it pe... EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY Jo's ambition was to do something very splendid; what it was she had no idea, as yet, but left it fo... LOUISA MAY ALCOTT When I first found out I had HIV, I had to find somebody who was living with it, who could help me u... MAGIC JOHNSON When I was growing up and somebody like Robert De Niro had a movie come out, it was a cultural event... SEAN PENN From the first day I met her, she was the only woman to me. Every day of that voyage I loved her mor... ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE It terrified me to have an idea that was solely mine to be no longer a part of my mind, but totally ... MAYA LIN I contemplated the phone for some time. Never had I heard her so oddly gay and forthright; as a matt... BROOKE HAYWARD After Chris' funeral I decided to grow my hair. Then a month later my uncle died of cancer. That was... CHADD LITTLE I think people thought I was crazy for leaving Mexico when I had any project I wanted falling at my ... KARLA SOUZA Under the name of truth I also included beauty, virtue, and every kind of goodness, so that for me i... SIMONE WEIL The bracelet says 'Fear Nothing.' It was given to me by my friends, and it was made for me a... JOSEPH J. LHOTA I wasn't in love with her. And she didn't love me. For me the question of love was irrelevant. What ... HARUKI MURAKAMI My dear, I could hardly keep still in my chair. I wanted to dash out of the house and leap in a taxi... EVELYN WAUGH There was no sleeper more elegant than she, with her curved body posed for a dance and her hand acro... GABRIEL GARCíA MáRQUEZ The next thing I know, it picked me up, my chair, with me on it, and threw me to the floor. I had a ... EDNA BEECHRAFT I had no sister, but I felt as if she were one." "A sister? You think of a woman that gorgeous ... JACK CAMPBELL She loved him, even though it was so hard to love anybody else after loving my dad. I think I knew t... MARGARET MCMULLAN Somehow, Sydney had an internal clock that told her when time was up. I think it was part of her inh... RICHELLE MEAD I then realized my appearance was a bit odd. My right leg was no longer with me. It had caught somew... DOUGLAS BADER I always wanted to go to the Chavez school but I could never afford it when I was growing up so a lo... LANCE BURTON It's so funny, because when I was growing up in a small town in New Hampshire, I was obsessed wi... ELIZA COUPE ...I am, in short, a rationalist and believe only that which reason tells me is so. Mind you, this i... ISAAC ASIMOV Coach (Greg Williams) has been telling me that I have to be more aggressive. That was the time to do... KADIE RIVERIN I would do as I was told, but I had a growing resentment about what was happening. It damaged my rel... GRAHAM COXON I was court-martial in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot ... BRENDAN F. BEHAN I was court-martialled in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could sho... BRENDAN BEHAN I was court-martial in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot ... THOMAS HARDY I believe I should have been swept away by the flood of French infidelity, if it had not been for on... JOHN RANDOLPH Feast of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, 988 I suddenly saw that all the time it was not I who... BEDE GRIFFITHS You have to approach something with indifference, as if you had no aesthetic emotion. The choice of ... MARCEL DUCHAMP It was like she was cheated. Only nobody had cheated her. So there was nobody to take it out on. How... CARSON MCCULLERS It was never what I wanted to buy that held my heart's hope. It was what I wanted to be. LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD The only time I felt I was different was when one of my friends said, 'I hate reading' and I... ADORA SVITAK And that was it; it was so easy for her. My own memories did not even belong to me. But I knew she w... SARAH DESSEN Her thoughts ran away to her girlhood with its passionate longing for adventure and she remembered t... SHERWOOD ANDERSON When I was younger, I had a perm, and it was really big. My mom was a hairdresser, so even my dad ha... HEIDI KLUM Looking back at that period of time was very interesting to me - just what had happened to it and wh... DEXTER WILLIAMS I get so sad that sad gets to be. So scared that all my feelings they up and leave me. I got so... TEGAN QUIN But what I found most interesting was that Aaron had apparently found a way to pass the time without... RICHELLE MEAD Her quality of life had been deteriorating for some time, so I was relieved that she was now at peac... DREW WOJTANIK Still having ‘a thing’ for her implies I had her at one time and have experiences that give foun... TEMPLE CARVER But nowadays my heart is empty and the boxwood has lost its magic scent; yes, absolutely and entirel... JULIAN GREEN It was a tough mistake. But luckily it was on one of steepest part of course, so I didn't lose momen... BENJAMIN RAICH The barriers we face in life are so often the ones we create in our minds. As a child I couldn’t o... LEANNE WATERS I guess I was actually sort of grateful that someone else was taking over my life. I mean, I'm obvio... JESSE ANDREWS Nothing had happened with it yet. All it said was that her services were no longer required. DEIRDRE FEDKENHEUER Eternity is said not to be an extension of time but an absence of time, and sometimes it seemed to m... GRAHAM GREENE
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ALAIN DE BOTTON As for despair, it comes about when I have been a fool and hate myself and despair of my personality... ALAIN DE BOTTON Therapy and counseling can do wonderful things for people. But they have emerged so far as what are ... ALAIN DE BOTTON The idea that one might use art for 'instrumental' reasons tends to set off alarm bells at t... ALAIN DE BOTTON We are never through with the requirement for acceptance. This isn't a curse limited to the inadequa... ALAIN DE BOTTON Status anxiety definitely exists at a political level. Many Iraqis were annoyed with the US essentia... ALAIN DE BOTTON I passionately believe that's it's not just what you say that counts, it's also how you say it - tha... ALAIN DE BOTTON I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day-to-day take on things. The bare fa... ALAIN DE BOTTON We are certainly influenced by role models, and if we are surrounded by images of beautiful rich peo... ALAIN DE BOTTON The Arab-Israeli conflict is also in many ways a conflict about status: it's a war between two p... ALAIN DE BOTTON Getting to the top has an unfortunate tendency to persuade people that the system is OK after all. ALAIN DE BOTTON Katie Price is no exception. She, too, is - in a distinctive way - a philosopher. Partially, Katie P... ALAIN DE BOTTON Used to do a lot of falling in love with people, almost in the street, and imagining that there woul... ALAIN DE BOTTON Le Corbusier is an outstanding writer. His ideas achieved their impact in large measure because he c... ALAIN DE BOTTON Since the beginning of the 20th century, the public's relationship to art has been weakened by a... ALAIN DE BOTTON There's a certain kind of insular, old-fashioned, upper-class Britishness that gives me the spoo... ALAIN DE BOTTON After Carol had left, as Symons threw away a pile of used tissues and rearranged the cushions on the... ALAIN DE BOTTON I am conscious of trying to stretch the boundaries of non-fiction writing. It's always surprised... ALAIN DE BOTTON I've had my successes and failures. I know many academics in my field loathe me. I've come t... ALAIN DE BOTTON Sweetness is the opposite of machismo, which is everywhere - and I really don't get on with mach... ALAIN DE BOTTON For thousands of years, it had been nature--and its supposed creator--that had had a monopoly on awe... ALAIN DE BOTTON Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we a... ALAIN DE BOTTON Perhaps the easiest people to fall in love with are those about whom we know nothing. Romances... ALAIN DE BOTTON A person cannot be at once a libertine and a married Romantic, however compelling both paradigms mig... ALAIN DE BOTTON We owe it to the fields that our houses will not be the inferiors of the virgin land they have repla... ALAIN DE BOTTON What we typically call love is only the start of love. Our understanding of love has been hijacked a... ALAIN DE BOTTON On account of its scale and complexity, the world will always outstrip the capacity of any single bo... ALAIN DE BOTTON Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writer... ALAIN DE BOTTON Emotional life is - alongside work - one of the great challenges of existence and is a theme that I ... ALAIN DE BOTTON The most attractive are not those who allow us to kiss them at once (we soon feel ungrateful) or tho... ALAIN DE BOTTON Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books that were w... ALAIN DE BOTTON There are few more effective ways to promote tolerance between suspicious neighbours than to force t... ALAIN DE BOTTON There's a constant tension between the excitement of new people and security with one person. If... 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ALAIN DE BOTTON One's doing well if age improves even slightly one's capacity to hold on to that vital truism: "This... ALAIN DE BOTTON A good half of the art of living is resilience. ALAIN DE BOTTON ...workplace dynamics are no less complicated or unexpectedly intense than family relations, with on... ALAIN DE BOTTON We are humiliated by what is powerful and mean, but awed by what is powerful and noble. ALAIN DE BOTTON Literature has always had its circus side, its freaks and its frivolities - and maybe that's all par... ALAIN DE BOTTON I love the idea of a university as away from capitalist values, where people can do things that don&... ALAIN DE BOTTON What makes the prospect of death distinctive in the modern age is the background of permanent techno... ALAIN DE BOTTON It seems, in fact, that the more advanced a society is, the greater will be its interest in ruined t... ALAIN DE BOTTON It is one of the unexpected disasters of the modern age that our new unparalleled access to informat... ALAIN DE BOTTON In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion. ALAIN DE BOTTON Blind impatience is equally evident in the fruit section. Our ancestors might have delighted in the ... ALAIN DE BOTTON Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from. ALAIN DE BOTTON Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement. ALAIN DE BOTTON Don't despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don't - surren... ALAIN DE BOTTON We are continuously challenged to discover new works of culture—and, in the process, we don’t al... ALAIN DE BOTTON We may seek a fortune for no greater reason than to secure the respect and attention of people who w... ALAIN DE BOTTON In Britain, because I live here, I can also run into problems of envy and competition. But all this ... ALAIN DE BOTTON Snobbery exists in all areas of life, not least literary criticism. By snobbery I mean, any method o... ALAIN DE BOTTON Pick up any newspaper or magazine, open the TV, and you'll be bombarded with suggestions of how to h... ALAIN DE BOTTON It is the most ambitious and driven among us who are the most sorely in need of having our reckless ... ALAIN DE BOTTON I've tried to write about Heathrow before and been escorted off the premises. ALAIN DE BOTTON Because I have this thing about birthdays--they always remind me of death and forced jollity. ALAIN DE BOTTON He was a volatile mixture of confidence and vulnerability. He could deliver extended monologues on p... ALAIN DE BOTTON The feeling one has no time to get anything done provides the pressure that guarantees one does get ... ALAIN DE BOTTON I'm fascinated by Comte's clear-eyed analysis of what was wrong with modern society, which i... ALAIN DE BOTTON The largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves ... ALAIN DE BOTTON It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Acquaintance with grief ... ALAIN DE BOTTON The most courageous act in politics is to try to understand your opponent. ALAIN DE BOTTON The idea of a book that can make a change to your life, that can affect your perspective, is a beaut... ALAIN DE BOTTON The philosophy I love is very selective. It is really just the bit that is involved in a search for ... ALAIN DE BOTTON It is hope--with regard to our careers, our love lives, our children, our politicians, and our plane... ALAIN DE BOTTON I learnt to stop fantasising about the perfect job or the perfect relationship because that can actu... ALAIN DE BOTTON He was marked out by his relentless ability to find fault with others' mediocrity--suggesting that a... ALAIN DE BOTTON There are books that speak to us of our own lives with a clarity we cannot match. They prevent the m... ALAIN DE BOTTON On paper, being good sounds great but a lot depends on the atmosphere of the workplace or community ... ALAIN DE BOTTON Travel is a lot like love. ALAIN DE BOTTON What is fascinating about marriage is why anyone wants to get married. ALAIN DE BOTTON I feel that the great challenge of our time is the communication of ideas. ALAIN DE BOTTON Learning to give up on perfection may be just about the most romantic move any of us could make. ALAIN DE BOTTON Work is a way of bringing order to chaos, and there's a basic satisfaction in seeing that we are... ALAIN DE BOTTON I like working with people. I believe change can only come through collaboration. ALAIN DE BOTTON I see religion as a storehouse of lots of really good ideas that a secular world should look at, rai... ALAIN DE BOTTON Rather than getting more spoilt with age, as difficulties pile up, epiphanies of gratitude abound. ALAIN DE BOTTON For the rest of history, for most of us, our bright promise will always fall short of being actualis... ALAIN DE BOTTON In 'Art as Therapy', we argue that art is a tool that can variously help to inspire, console... ALAIN DE BOTTON I was a very un-literary child, which might reassure parents with kids who don't read. ALAIN DE BOTTON In our more arrogant moments, the sin of pride—or superbia, in Augustine's Latin formulation—tak... ALAIN DE BOTTON Partially undermining the manufacturer's ability to assert that its work constituted a meaningful co... ALAIN DE BOTTON Pegging your contentment to the overall state of the world rather than of your own life: the basis o... ALAIN DE BOTTON The solution as consumers is - perhaps surprisingly - to take adverts very, very seriously. We shoul... ALAIN DE BOTTON We don't need to be constantly reasonable in order to have good relationships; all we need to have m... ALAIN DE BOTTON To look at the paper is to raise a seashell to one's ear and to be overwhelmed by the roar of humani... ALAIN DE BOTTON I think of myself as quite a shy person. But when I'm curious about something, I'll go quite... ALAIN DE BOTTON Artworks are especially good at helping our psyches in a variety of ways: they rebalance our moods, ... ALAIN DE BOTTON [T]he unsympathetic assessments we make of others are usually the result of nothing more sinister th... ALAIN DE BOTTON It is not only the hostility of others that may prevent us from questioning the status quo. Our will... ALAIN DE BOTTON The most boring and unproductive question one can ask of any religion is whether or not it is true. ALAIN DE BOTTON Whatever modern democracies may tell themselves about their commitment to free speech and to diversi... ALAIN DE BOTTON The true nature of bureaucracy may be nowhere more obvious to the observer than in a developing coun... ALAIN DE BOTTON To be loved by someone is to realize how much they share the same needs that lie at the heart of our... ALAIN DE BOTTON We fall in love because we long to escape from ourselves with someone as beautiful, intelligent, and... ALAIN DE BOTTON Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice. ALAIN DE BOTTON A storyteller who provided us with such a profusion of details would rapidly grow maddening. Unfortu... ALAIN DE BOTTON We used to build temples, and museums are about as close as secular society dares to go in facing up... ALAIN DE BOTTON The Anxiety of Sunday afternoon: your unlived lives and infinite possibility pressing upon the const... ALAIN DE BOTTON Blessed with riches and possibilities far beyond anything imagined by ancestors who tilled the unpre... ALAIN DE BOTTON We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical: to compensate for ... ALAIN DE BOTTON Even if our loved ones have assured us that they will be busy at work, even if they told us they hat... ALAIN DE BOTTON You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneven... ALAIN DE BOTTON What a peculiar civilisation this was: inordinately rich, yet inclined to accrue its wealth through ... ALAIN DE BOTTON Despite the best efforts of critics and the hopes of authors, our tastes in books are probably as in... ALAIN DE BOTTON We would like to go and see the field that Millet…shows us in his Springtime, we would like Claude... ALAIN DE BOTTON Our feelings of anxiety are genuine but confused signals that something is amiss, and so need to be ... ALAIN DE BOTTON Paying tax should be framed as a glorious civic duty worthy of gratitude - not a punishment for maki... ALAIN DE BOTTON Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we c... ALAIN DE BOTTON Every fall into love involves the triumph of hope over self-knowledge. We fall in love hoping we won... ALAIN DE BOTTON Nature puts us all in our places. Being made to feel small isn't something we welcome when it's done... ALAIN DE BOTTON in Flaubert’s eyes, that only entirely illiterate and uneducated Frenchmen now stood a chance of b... ALAIN DE BOTTON A clean conscience is the preserve of those without sufficient imagination. ALAIN DE BOTTON In the past, Flaubert implied, idiots had had no clue as to what the carbon structure of diamonds wa... ALAIN DE BOTTON Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself. ALAIN DE BOTTON But we would do well to meditate daily, rather as the religious do on their God, on the 9.5 trillion... ALAIN DE BOTTON To a shameful extent, the charm of marriage boils down to how unpleasant it is to be alone. This isn... ALAIN DE BOTTON One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on. ALAIN DE BOTTON What kills us isn't one big thing, but thousands of tiny obligations we can't turn down for fear of ... ALAIN DE BOTTON Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books written bec... ALAIN DE BOTTON It is precisely when we hear little from our partner which frightens, shocks, or sickens us that we ... ALAIN DE BOTTON Unrequited love may be painful, but it is safely painful, because it does not involve inflicting dam... ALAIN DE BOTTON It's clear to me that there is no good reason for many philosophy books to sound as complicated as t... ALAIN DE BOTTON Jarenlang kwam ik bij het boodschappen doen langs een huis dat weliswaar een van de lelijkste gebouw... ALAIN DE BOTTON Snobbery exists in all areas of life, not least literary criticism. By snobbery I mean, any method o... ALAIN BOTTON Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writer... ALAIN BOTTON I passionately believe that's it's not just what you say that counts, it's also how you say it - tha... ALAIN BOTTON I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day-to-day take on things. The bare fa... ALAIN BOTTON