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Quote by Alain de Botton

“Marriage: a hopeful, generous, infinitely kind gamble taken by two people who don’t know yet who they are or who the other might be, binding themselves to a future they cannot conceive of and have carefully omitted to investigate.”

Quote by Alain de Botton

Work

The Course of Love

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Author

Alain de Botton
Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton is a Swiss writer and philosopher known for his books on philosophy, art, and culture. His work is characterized by its accessible exploration of profound themes, which has won him a wide audience. more

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“With technology and everything, compact discs are going to be, like, vintage soon, right? The way vinyl is now. Like, if I ever have kids, they’re going to look at CDs and think, ‘What is this crap, geez, how clunky.’ By then everyone will have the fiftieth edition of iPods—or maybe they’ll just have music downloaded directly into their brains, like with microchips, or something. And I’ll be the old lady in the corner going, ‘Back when I was a kid, we had mix tapes, and floppy disks, and gas didn’t cost twenty bucks a gallon, and oh, yeah, MTV actually played music videos, if you can believe it.’ And they’ll probably say, ‘Oh, Mom, you and your stories, we’re jetting to the oxygen bar, see you later,’ and take off in their flying cars. You know there’ll be flying cars, it’s only a matter of time.”

“But… you intrigue me, which is a surprise in and of itself. I can never predict what you’ll say or do next. You’re a quirky, complex, fierce blaze of fire in my otherwise numb, predictable world. See, despite that I have everything I want, it hasn’t made me satisfied. If anything, it has made me bored and restless. There have been no challenges, no obstacles, and nothing I couldn’t manage or control one way or another…until you.” It drove him crazy, but it also energized him. “I like having you in my life. I intend to keep you in it.”

“Love isn’t like the grand romantic gestures you see in the movie. It isn’t a kiss and happily ever after, no matter how much I’d like it to be. It’s late night texts and tired calls after a long day on location, and heated arguments that end in 3 a.m. Facetimes apologizing to each other. It involves a lot of missing what other couples have-normalcy.”