The Romantic Movement Quotes

“To have a sexual history did not only imply one had made love to a succession of people, it also suggested one had either rejected or been rejected by these same bedroom companions.”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel

“I strip myself emotionally when I confess need – that I would be lost without you, that I am not necessarily the independent person I have tried to appear, but am a far less admirable weakling with little clue of life’s course or meaning. When I cry and tell you things I trust you will keep for yourself, that would destroy me if others were to learn of them, when I give up the game of gazing seductively at parties and admit it’s you I care about, I am stripping myself of a carefully sculpted illusion of invulnerability. I become as defenseless and trusting as the person in the circus trick, strapped to a board into which another is throwing knives to within inches of my skin, knives I have myself freely given. I allow you to see me humiliated, unsure of myself, vacillating, drained of self-confidence, hating myself and hence unable to convince you [should I need to] to do otherwise. I am weak when I have shown you my panicked face at three in the morning, anxious before existence, free of the blustering, optimistic philosophies I had proclaimed over dinner. I learn to accept the enormous risk that though I am not the confident pin-up of everyday life, though you have at hand an exhaustive catalogue of my fears and phobias, you may nevertheless love me.”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel

“Alice cold make no sense of the despair into which she had fallen. She had always held that happiness should be defined as an absence of pain rather than the presence of pleasure. So why, with a decent job, good health, and a roof over her head, did she regularly and so childishly collapse into moist sobs?”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel

“Academic masochism reflects a metaphysical prejudice that the truth should be a hard-won treasure, that what is read or learnt easily must therefore be flighty and inconsequential. The truth should be like a mount to be scaled, it is dangerous, obscure and demanding. Under the light of the library reading room, the academics' motto reads: the more a text makes me suffer, the truer it must be.”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel

“Though debts are condemned in the financial world, the world of friendship and love may perversely depend on well-managed debts.”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel

“The word power typically signifies a capacity for action. The Oxford English Dictionary tells us power lies in an 'ability to do or effect something or anything, or to act upon a person or thing'. The person who has power may influence the material or social environment, generally on the basis of possessing high-tech weapons, money, oil, superior intelligence or large muscles. In war, I am powerful because I can blow up your city walls or drop bombs on your airfields. In the financial world, I am powerful because I can buy up your shares and invade your markets. In boxing, I am ,ore powerful because my punches outwit and exhaust yours. But in love, this issue appears to depend on a far more passive, negative definition; instead of looking at power as a capacity to do something, one may come to think of it as the capacity to do nothing.”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel

“What was this curious, syntactically repetitive emotion?
It expressed a certain reflexivity about the amorous state, it meant deriving more pleasure from one's own emotional enthusiasm than from the object of affection which had elicited it.”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel

“The issue of how to cede to seduction is tortuous: too soon and one may appear unworthy, too slow and one may lose the interest of the partner.”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel

“Alice loved in order to make up for her own insufficiencies, she searched in others for qualities she aspired to, respected but lacked. Her emotional needs were like a puzzle incomplete without a segment brought by another but the dimensions of the void altered in response to self-development, the piece which fitted at fifteen would no longer fit at thirty. The gap redrew its contours, and unless the puzzle-person kept up she would be left to divorce or awkwardly force the issue.”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel

“Hamlet,sorunları olduğu için mi o kadar çok düşünüyordu?
Yoksa çok fazla düşündüğü için mi sorunları vardı?”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel

“Kendimizi bildik bileli burçlara ve kişisel fallara merak duymamızın nedeni,anlaşılma tutkumuzu uyandırıyor olmalarıdır.”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel

“... Eu me desnudo emocionalmente quando confesso minha carência – que estarei perdido sem você, que não sou necessariamente a pessoa independente que tentei aparentar. Na verdade, não passo de um fraco, cuja noção dos rumos ou do significado da vida é muito restrita. Quando choro e lhe conto coisas que, confio, serão mantidas em segredo, coisas que me levarão à destruição, caso terceiros tomem conhecimento delas, quando vou a festas e não me entrego ao jogo da sedução porque reconheço que só você me interessa, estou me privando de uma ilusão há muito acalentada de invulnerabilidade. Me torno indefeso e confiante como a pessoa no truque circense, presa a uma prancha sobre a qual um atirador de facas exercita sua perícia e as lâminas que eu mesmo forneci passam a poucos centímetros da minha pele. Eu permito que você assista a minha humilhação, insegurança e tropeços. Exponho minha falta de amor-próprio, me tornando, dessa forma, incapaz de convencer você (seria realmente necessário?) a mudar de atitude. Sou fraco quando exibo meu rosto apavorado na madrugada, ansioso ante a existência, esquecido das filosofias otimistas e entusiasmadas que recitei durante o jantar. Aprendi a aceitar o enorme risco de que, embora eu não seja uma pessoa atraente e confiante, embora você tenha a seu dispor um catálogo vasto de meus medos e fobias, você pode, mesmo assim, me amar...”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel

“Ze was niet gek, ze was in de grote boeken en theorieën gedoken, ze had geleerd dat God dood was en dat de Mens (dat andere anachronisme) op zijn laatste benen liep als belichaming van een antwoord op het Leven, ze wist dat men geacht werd verhalen met een gelukkige afloop en tevreden heldinnen pulp te noemen en geen literatuur. Toch zat ze, misschien omdat ze een zwak had voor soap operas en liedjes waarvan het verheven refrein zong van de wens om te "Hold you, oh yeah, and love you baby, I said and love you baby," nog steeds te wachten (bij de telefoon of anderszins) tot de verlossing zich zou aandienen.”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel

“Wat hield deze liefdespermanentie in? Een zeker geloof in de liefde van de ander, dat zonder onmiddellijk bewijs of teken van de belangstelling van de geliefde in stand kon blijven, het geloof dat de partner, hoewel voor het weekend in Milaan of Wenen, niet bezig was een cappuccino of Sachertorte te nuttigen met een liefdesrivaal, het geloof dat een stilte gewoon een stilte was en niet een aanwijzing dat de liefde ter ziele was.”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel

“For most of their relationship, Eric avoided paying his due because he knew Alice would pay when he didn't. If he paid only 10 units, she would come up with the other 30. If he didn't feel like driving over to her house then she would come to his. if he didn't wish to break a deadlock after an argument, he could count on her to play the mediator. But he miscalculated just how far he could push Alice. her share of the 40x began to slowly decline, leaven him to make up the shortfall. Only small amounts were at first involved, but they suffered remorseless inflation until the full weight of the relationship came to descend on this delicate shoulders. Alice had in a myriad of ways imply ceased to care, and Eric realized that unless he continued to pump around 30x into the situation, Alice and he would inevitably collide and break up.”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel

“Romantik dönem boyuncaruhun hisle bağdaştırıldığından bahsetmiştik; ancak şunu söylemekte yarar var ki çok kısa bir süre sonra his;zevkleri ya da mutlulukları değil de acıları hissetmekle özdeşlerştirilir oldu.Bir şeyleri derinden yaşamak; mutlu olmak;duşta ıslık çalmak ya da bahçede şarkı söylemek anlamına gelmiyordu: Ruhu olan insan acılara duyarlı insan demekti artık.”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel

“Wittgenstein'ı bu duruma uyarlayacak olursak,dünyamızın sınırlarının,başkalarının bizi anlama sınırları tarafından belirlendiğini söyleyebiliriz.Elimizde olmadan başkalarının algılarının parametreleri içinde var oluruz- başkalarının bizim komikliğimizi anlama sınırları içinde komiklik yaparız;onların zekası bizim zekamızı,cömertliği cömertliğimizi,ironisi ironimizi belirler.Karakter,hem okura hem de yazara ihtiyaç duyan bir dil gibi işler.Shakespeare, yedi yaşındaki çocuğun gözünde saçmalıktan ibarettir,eğer sadece yedi yaşındakiler tarafından okunacak olursa yedi yaşındaki birinin anlama kapasitesi ölçüsünde takdir edilir.”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel

“Biriyle yüz yirmi yıl bir arada yaşasak,bize ne düşündüğümüzü sorsalar,onun karmaşık kişiliğinin hakkını vermemiz ve "Onu henüz tanımaya başladım" diye yanıtlamamız gerekir.Ancak bunun yerine,biriyle tanıştıktan iki dakika sonra bir izlenim oluşur zihnimizde: "Ondan hoşlandım/ Ondan hoşlanmadım".Biyolojik bir ihtiyacın ilkel kalıntısıdır bu tepki;mağara adamı,birisiyle karşı karşıya geldiğinde onun dost mu düşman mı olduğunu bir bakışta anlamak zorundadır.”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel

“Differences of age or of race may set up postitions of manufactured superiority: the manual worker from Germany flies to Thailand and because of the historical advantage of his economy and exchange rate, feels and behaves like a millionaire. The plodding Englishman arrives in a small North American town and, simply on account of his exotic accent, may be welcomed as charmingly original and sophisticated.”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel

“It's the permanent female problem, whether or not to trust a man when he's seducing. You may like the man without trusting him, but one thing you want to avoid is getting hurt again.”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel

“Ergenlik suçlamaları,boyutları ne olursa olsun,insanlığın çektiği acıların karmaşıklığını bir anda ortadan kaldırı veriyordu.Eğer ergenlik suçlamasını edebiyat yapıtlarına uyarlayacak olsaydık,dünya üzerindeki bütün edebiyat eleştirmenleri işlerinden olurdu.Hamlet'in,Raskolnikov'un ve Genç Werther'in sırrı neydi?Erganlik bunalımları tabi.Peki ya Don Quixote veya Humbert Humbert?Onda ne var canım,yanıt:Orta yaş bunalımları.Öyleyse zavallı Anna Karenina'yı nasıl açıklamalıydı?Yanıt gayet baitti: regl öncesi sendromu,bir de fazla salgılanan hormonlar.”
― Alain de Botton, The Romantic Movement: Sex, Shopping, and the Novel