Francois Lelord Quotes & Sayings

He looked at Hector's list and told him that, thanks to a lot of studies and calculations, they'd shown that if you compared yourself to others and didn't find yourself wanting, if you had no money or health problems, if you had friends, a close-knit family, a job you liked, if you were religious and practised your religion, if you felt useful, if you went for a little stroll from time to time, and all of this in a country that was run by not very bad people, where you were taken care of when things went wrong, your chances of bring happy were greatly increased. — Francois Lelord

It's one thing thinking something and another thing knowing it. — Francois Lelord

Some people, very many actually, both men and women, complained of having enjoyed a very loving relationship with someone, but of no longer feeling the same way despite still being very fond of that person, with whom they generally lived. — Francois Lelord

The basic mistake people make is to think that happiness is the goal! — Francois Lelord

Happiness is a different thing altogether. If you try to achieve it, you have every chance of failing. And besides, how would you ever know that you'd achieved it? Of course one can't blame people, especially unhappy people, for wanting to be happier and setting themselves goals in order to try to escape from their unhappiness. — Francois Lelord

People who are afraid of death are afraid of lif — Francois Lelord

He who spends too long regretting his ruined crop will be neglect to plant next year's harvest. — Francois Lelord

Eros is not tranquil - it gives us spikes of happiness rather than a constant feeling of wellbeing. It's the love we feel at the beginning of a love affair and corresponds to the expression 'falling in love' since it is as involuntary an impulse as a physical fall. — Francois Lelord

Nature or nurture' said the professor. 'Whichever way the parents are to blame — Francois Lelord

Very different from eros is philia, a serene love much more akin to friendship, with its reciprocal kindnesses. You love each other for the happy experiences and pleasures you share. — Francois Lelord

Happiness is knowing how to celebrate — Francois Lelord

Be vary wary of people who declare that they're going to create heaven on earth, they almost invariably create hell. — Francois Lelord

It is love that transports us, that fills us with joy! Love turns life into one long adventure, every encounter is a dazzling experience - well, not always, of course, but in actual fact, it is our less successful love affairs that enable us to appreciate the others. I think love protects us from one of the biggest problems facing the modern world: boredom. — Francois Lelord

There's no point in looking before crossing the road if you don't look in the right direction. — Francois Lelord

He didn't necessarily think that it was okay, but when a psychiatrist says 'okay', it just means 'I understand what you're saying. — Francois Lelord

They were both going to the big country where there were more psychiatrists than anywhere else in the world. We could just as well say more swimming pools, more Nobel prizewinners, more strategic bombers, more apple pies, more computers, more natural parks, more libraries, more cheerleaders, more serial killers, more newspapers, more raccoons, many of many more things, because it was the country of More. No doubt because the people who lived there had left their own countries precisely because they wanted more, especially more freedom. (Hector and the Search for Happiness) * — Francois Lelord

Making comparisons can spoil your happiness. — Francois Lelord

Listening is loving — Francois Lelord

True wisdom would be the ability to live without this scenery, to be the same person even at the bottom of a well. But that, it has to be said, is not so easy. — Francois Lelord

Knowing and feeling are two different things, and feeling is what counts. — Francois Lelord

And, like poor Phaedra, we fall in love not with who we want to fall in love with, but with one who moves us, and sometimes it is the last person we should fall in love with. Our involuntary choice is not always the right one, and sometimes it is actually the worst one, hence our suffering. And then, of course, there is the completely different situation of the loving people where, over the years, the love they once felt for each other fades and they can't go on. They feel their love dying, but are unable to bring it back to life. — Francois Lelord

But the reasons why Hector was unhappy were quite complex. He didn't really want to think about it, perhaps because those reasons weren't so easy to accept. It even made him feel a little afraid. He knew this fear too well, it was what stopped his patients from being able to really think about their problems, and it was his job to help them overcome this fear and understand what was happening to them. — Francois Lelord

Music is a very good way of thinking about time. A note only moves you because you remember the one before, and you're waiting for the next ... Each one only means something wrapped in a bit of the past and the future. — Francois Lelord

Exciting happiness is joy, celebration, travelling, being in bed with a woman you desire. — Francois Lelord

Happiness. We're tearing our hair out to try to find a definition of it, for heaven's sake. Is it joy? People will tell you that it isn't, that joy is a fleeting emotion, a moment of happiness, which is always welcome, mind you. And then what about pleasure, huh? Oh, yes, that's easy, everybody knows what that is, but there again it doesn't last. But is happiness not the sum total of lots of small joys and pleasures, huh? — Francois Lelord

Many people think that happiness comes from having more power or more money. — Francois Lelord

I'm old enough to ask myself that question, but not so old that I don't care what the answer is. — Francois Lelord

Sometimes happiness is not knowing the whole story. — Francois Lelord

Happiness often comes when least expected. — Francois Lelord

Adeline was really rather charming, she always had a man in her life, but it never worked out: either they were nice but she didn't find them very exciting; or they were exciting but she didn't find them particularly nice, or they were neither nice nor exciting and she wondered why she was with them at all. She found a way of making the exciting men nicer and that was by leaving them. But then, they weren't exciting anymore either. — Francois Lelord

People fall in love more easily when they are already troubled by another emotion because we know that any intense emotional state greatly increases the risk of falling in love. — Francois Lelord

[T]he greatest gift you can give someone is to introduce them to someone new. — Francois Lelord

But, in reality, being unhappy might also teach him something about happiness. — Francois Lelord

Happiness is feeling useful to others. — Francois Lelord

Finding love is a fixation now, and that's because although romantic love can sometimes cause a lot of suffering, it can also give people peaks of happiness that come very close to our ideal of 'the happy state.' — Francois Lelord

Nobody wants to live with a person who'll never be happy. — Francois Lelord

Notice that we say 'more psychiatrists than anywhere else in the world' but we could just as well say more swimming pools, more Nobel prizewinners, more strategic bombers, more apple pies, more computers, more natural parks, more libraries, more cheerleaders, more serial killers, more newspapers, more racoons, more of many more things, because it was the country of More, and had been for a long time. — Francois Lelord

Those who believed in the Good Lord, for whom death was just a journey, and it didn't make them sad at all — Francois Lelord

Because the problem with psychiatry is that you mostly study people who aren't doing so well, whereas if you spent a little more time studying people who are doing very well, it might give you some good ideas to help the ones who are not. — Francois Lelord

Lesson no. 17: Happiness is caring about the happiness of those you love. — Francois Lelord

You must be careful when you ask people whether they're happy; it's a question that can upset them a great deal. — Francois Lelord

By adding together these three differences - between what we have and what we'd like to have, what we have now and the best of what we've had in the past, and what we have and what other people have - you get an average difference which is closely related to happiness. The smaller the difference, the happier we are. — Francois Lelord

[P]erhaps this was how you knew a good deed was truly good: you didn't necessarily feel better afterwards. — Francois Lelord

Edouard said that he didn't take Hector for a fool, but he could see that Hector had fallen in love, which was worse than being a fool. — Francois Lelord

The old monk said, 'The basic mistake people make is to think that happiness is the goal!' And — Francois Lelord

Or rather, he was sad because that morning he'd understood that he'd understood nothing, because while he still understood nothing he wasn't sad at all, but now that he'd understood that he'd understood nothing he felt sad, if you follow. — Francois Lelord

Because they know that people will be kinder to a child who smiles. — Francois Lelord

He knew his love for her was more a desire to save her, to be her superhero, and it was partly a desire to do what people who are in love do, and partly a desire to feel young again with her, because Ying Li was very young, and she looked even younger. — Francois Lelord

Because there are times when getting up to mischief isn't mischievous and other times when it is and you shouldn't do it. — Francois Lelord

Lesson no. 12: It's harder to be happy in a country run by bad people. — Francois Lelord

Nostalgia is not what it used to be. — Francois Lelord

Lesson no. 20: Happiness is a certain way of seeing things. — Francois Lelord

He had fallen in love with her emotions, and that was a very profound feeling indeed. — Francois Lelord

The only shadow on my happiness is when I tell myself sometimes that as it's all going well, it can't last, that one day things won't be so good. — Francois Lelord

And since he was seeing more and more people who were unhappy for no apparent reason, he was becoming more and more tired, and even a little happy himself. He began to wonder whether he was in the right profession, whether he was happy with his life, whether he wasn't missing out on something. And then he felt very afraid because he wondered whether these unhappy people were contagious. — Francois Lelord

Did the squirrel realize how lucky he was to be there? Or on the contrary did he spend his life wondering whether he might not be better off somewhere else, or feeling that he didn't have the life he deserved? In the end, it depended on the comparisons the squirrel was able to make — Francois Lelord

He wondered why he wasn't as in love with her as he was with ... Hector had only shared enjoyment with (her) ... he shared everything, enjoyment and sorrow ... but for some time now they'd shared too much frustration, boredom and fatigue. — Francois Lelord

We fall in love or stay in love with people who are unsuitable or who no longer love us and, conversely, we feel no love towards people who would be very suitable. Love is involuntary, that's the problem. Our personal histories prepare us to be attracted to people who unconsciously evoke emotions from our childhood or adolescence. — Francois Lelord

The best advice is found on the pillow', he — Francois Lelord

I didn't intend 'Hector' to be a self-help book when I first started writing. I wrote it as a little tale about a psychiatrist, like me, who sets off around the world in order to discover the vital ingredients for happiness. — Francois Lelord

Women are very complicated, even if you are a psychiatrist. — Francois Lelord

He had realised that it was Clara he loved, and that he loved her in many different ways. (Because there are even more ways of loving than there are ways of being happy, but it would take another book to explain them all.) — Francois Lelord

Many people see happiness only in their future. — Francois Lelord