Am taking my time reading The Romantic Movement. I love Alain de Botton’s writing style so much that I dread when there are no more words to read! And as he did with On Love, he’s again indulging the cynic in me. It’s almost a guilty pleasure. Here are some more short quotations from his book.
Before we need to know whether someone is good or bad, we crave an assurance that whatever the answer, they’ll stick to being one or the other.
Paranoia may be the most natural response to the feeling of love, to fully valuing another and hence growing aware of the ever present potential of their loss.”
There must have been a frightening discrepancy between her feelings when she had given him her hand and his when he had held it…
The experience had help shatter some of twenty-year-old Alice’s illusions. She had become aware of the possible insincerity of actions. The way a man might kiss and hold her hand, but his thoughts could be elsewhere entirely, an almost immoral gap existing between surface expression and underlying intention.
If she now showed signs of paranoia, she needed to be held at more than normal intervals, it was in part to repair the damage past experiences had inflicted.
Power in love arises from the ability to not give a damn.