The School of Life: Quotes to Live By: A collection to revive and inspire

When we are around small children who frustrate us, we don’t declare them evil; we find less alarming ways of interpreting the origins of their difficult behaviour: perhaps they are getting a bit tired, their gums are sore or they are upset by the arrival of a younger sibling. Given how immature every adult necessarily remains, the moves we execute

We keep imagining that we haven’t met ‘the right person’; we overlook that we might have the wrong picture of love.

The partner best suited to us is not one who happens to share our every taste; it is the one who can negotiate differences in taste with intelligence and grace. Compatibility is an achievement of love; it shouldn’t be its precondition.

Love your children reliably and they’ll outgrow you. Ignore them and they’ll be obsessed with you for life.

In love, rather than being heralded as perfect, it is a great deal more reassuring, and therefore romantic, to be recognised as deeply flawed – but on that basis, deserving of boundless tenderness and patience.

People reveal their sanity by their gracious knowledge and acceptance of their mad sides. A standard question on any initial dinner date should simply be: ‘In what particular ways are you crazy?’ We should beware of those who can’t answer or get offended.

It takes time and experience to realise that we cannot, in the end, rescue anyone – at best, just facilitate certain moves they were on their way to making anyway.

As adults, we strive to cultivate the character traits that might have rescued our parents.

The two things we try so hard never to communicate directly to our partners in love: ‘I need you’ and ‘You have hurt me’. We’ll go to any lengths to act out our pain rather than spell out our vulnerability.