Alain De Botton

speaker

1,037 appearances 5 recordings 5 series first heard Jan 2024 last heard 1 Jul

Alain De Botton’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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Conversations · Special Collection: Alain de Botton on the true hardwork of love and relationships · 22 May 2026 podcast

I think after you've been living with somebody for a few years, again, this is something that crops up in the novel, it's very easy to think of your partner as a bit of an idiot.

You just think, oh, that person again.

And then an amazing thing is, if you learn to look at them with humour, they become that really special thing, subtly different, very special, called a lovable idiot.

So they go from idiot to lovable idiot.

And that's the work of comic genius.

Think of those great shows we all love, like The Office, where David Brent, he's a total idiot.

But once you look at it through the eyes of comic genius, he ends up as a lovable idiot, or Larry David.

And I think that we need a little bit of that

in our relationships, we need to be able to see people's flaws through, you know, it's not really comedy.

Ultimately, it is sympathy.

But, you know, it can be accompanied by laughter.

And then you're conquering this distance.

And in the conquest of the distance, that is what the thrill is.

That's the excitement.

It's like they're allowing me to touch them there.

You know, that's amazing.

They're allowing me to do that thing, you know, and that's the thrill.

And then suddenly you've got permission to do anything, anytime.

And it becomes a lot less interesting and you become fused.

And I think that, you know, why do people have a better time in hotel rooms?

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