“To a shameful extent, the charm of marriage boils down to how unpleasant it is to be alone. This isn’t necessarily our fault as individuals. Society as a whole appears determined to render the single state as nettlesome and depressing as possible: once the freewheeling days of school and university are over, company and warmth become dispiritingly hard to find; social life starts to revolve oppressively around couples; there’s no one left to call or hang out with. It’s hardly surprising, then, if when we find someone halfway decent, we might cling.”

“It is precisely when we hear little from our partner which frightens, shocks, or sickens us that we should begin to be concerned, for this may be the surest sign that we are being gently lied to or shielded from the other’s imagination, whether out of kindness or from a touching fear of losing our love. It may mean that we have, despite ourselves, shut our ears to information that fails to conform to our hopes — hopes which will thereby be endangered all the more. My view of human nature is that all of us are just holding it together in various ways — and that’s okay, and we just need to go easy with one another, knowing that we’re all these incredibly fragile beings.”

“The rich believe that their money will insulate them from setbacks and frustrations, and that's one of the absurdist expectations of all.”

“We are humiliated by what is powerful and mean, but awed by what is powerful and noble.”

“My dad was a slightly stricter version of Richard Dawkins. The worldview was that there are idiots out there who believe in Santa Claus and fairies and magic and elves, and we're not joining that nonsense.”

“It's almost a blessing when we meet people who naturally want to do the sort of things that are in high demand in society. What a gift to do that, as opposed to other people who would say, 'I want to be a novelist but actually I have to be an accountant.'”

“I like working with people. I believe change can only come through collaboration.”

“The claims I'm making for art are simply the claims that we naturally make around music or around poetry. We're much more relaxed around those art forms. We're willing to ask, 'How could this find a place in my heart?'”

“If you are pro love, you have to be a little bit disloyal to the romantic feelings that propel you in the early days.”

“The philosophy I love is very selective. It is really just the bit that is involved in a search for wisdom, and this means a short roll call of names; Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epicurus, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche.”

“I'm not an academic philosopher, and don't agree with the way the universities approach the subject. I'm a philosopher only in the very loose sense of someone interested in wisdom and well-being attained through reason. But I'm as interested in psychoanalysis and art as I am in philosophy.”