Thanks very much to everyone who left a comment. Sorry I was only able to scratch the surface. If a question is burning, please come to visit me at www.alaindebotton.com - and I'll do my best.

Not focusing on the price of houses directly, there are some real signs that architectural quality has improved a lot. Much has to do with the moves of the last Labour government, that put the quality of housing delivery at the heart of its agenda (some of this has been scrapped, but not all of it, fortunately). But an ordinary housing block going up now in London or Inverness has a better chance of following best practice than it did 10 years ago. As with food, we in Britain are very slowly catching up with ideas that have been common in Holland or Germany for a while.

Small world! I've grown up with a very strong work ethic, which in me is really animated by a sense of just how short our time on this spinning planet really is. So I'm constantly guided by a guilty sense that there is a lot to do and very little time left to do it. At best, I can put out another 8 books or so. That's a scary prospect in terms of choosing what might be the best topics and how not to mess them up too badly.

I would say that we are a mixture of Greek and Judeo-Christian ideas. The latter have just as much of an influence of the former. Our idea of human rights, of equality, of democracy are as much Christian as they are Greek.

I should say that the films on Youtube are not the ongoing story of my life and my marriage. They are heartfelt perspectives, but arise from a number of sources. There is a very understandable temptation to connect up what a writer discusses - say - in a novel with the events in their life, but the awkward truth is that it's immensely fun and liberating to invent perspectives on problems one hasn't necessarily directly experienced. All this to say - thank you so much for dinner, but not this time around.

The tricky thing is HOW such an education would work. I recently was reading David Hume who was very against delivering lectures on ethics to young people. He cheerfully explained why: they won't listen, they'll find it boring. So for Hume - and he was right I think - what those with ethical ambitions need to do is find ways to make 'the good' not just true but convincing and - to use a doubtful word - charming. Hume believed that popular history and plays could help to reform character far more than dry lectures in philosophy. In short, any ambition to reform the young always has to start with the true enemy one is facing: boredom, disengagement, and the unbelievable charms of twitter. These are the things that any educator has to overcome in a quest to reform the world.

It is immensely hard to find a sense of purpose, but if you are feeling very actively that you haven't found it, that you are on the wrong track, these are signals that imply - like a negative implies a positive - that somewhere within you you do have a sense of what might be meaningful for you. A feeling that things are inauthentic wouldn't be possible without an underlying (even if still veiled) belief in authentic possibilities. It's important not to panic or despair because the answer hasn't manifested itself yet. It may well take a decade or two till one can start to know oneself well enough to realise what might bring purpose to life. In the meantime, sympathy for the scale of the challenge one's facing is important - that and an accurate sense that one is far from alone (even though society constantly presents us with examples of people who seem to know exactly what is what; people who in fact constitute a painfully small majority, who nevertheless make it to the front pages of websites too often for our mental well-being.

1. It took 3 years.
2. The School of Life provided a forum in which I could test some of the ideas, by presenting them to small audiences - and also, learn from the many people who come through our doors. We run a psychotherapy service and our resident therapist was extremely helpful to me in discussing some of the problems of couples. So all in all, it's very good to go into an office rather than spend all day alone in a room...

The lack of 'meaning' as humans can conceive it when we look at our lives on a cosmic perspective should not be an invitation to do nothing. However nice beds and cheap wine are, knowing that our lives are short and our efforts fragile could as well be a goad to action - especially around helping others - as to indolence. That shouldn't sound hectoring or ungenerous. Most of all, I wish you a nice break.

Yes, we will - I think - eventually reach a post-religious age. In many ways, in Western Europe, we are already here. This would be very desirable in my view; of course, there are better and worse ways of secularising. For me, the best way is to remember all the emotional needs that we once turned to religion with - and to try to find alternatives in the secular world. No longer believing generally isn't the end of some of the feelings that took people to belief.

Suspicion of intellects has many sources, not least, that many intellectuals have made enormous mistakes, especially around politics (think of the very misguided ideas of Sartre, or of Heidegger or other big mid 20th century names). That said, allowing a variety of voices onto the airwaves seems a way to achieve genuine plurality.

As for teaching philosophy, a lot depends on how it is done. There are ways of teaching it - historically, unimaginatively - that are far worse than not teaching it at all (at least then it retains an aura). My recommendation would be that we'd teach young people about relationships via the ideas of psychotherapy; this seems to offer a more direct route to solving some of the big issues that crop up in teenage years.

I'm sorry about the challenges of day to day life: yes, we do need a good communication person... But I would just ask what it is about further study that you're hoping will move you out of the current situation. In general, when people consider a job move, the risk is a faulty analysis of the current dissatisfaction, a flawed analysis of what one's true talents and interests are - and a misreading of the job market. All these are hugely tricky issues - which is why i'm a firm believer that one should spend a h ugely long time unpicking the dilemma, possibly with the help of a mentor - and only very slowly judge whether a big move is necessary. The tragedy of most job searches is that they proceed under the pressure of immediate feelings of instincts, which turn out not accurately to reflect the aptitudes of the people involved. In short, take it slowly and think a lot...

PS: I would add that there are many ways in which a greater deal of meaning can be found in existing jobs, without the need to throw everything in. At the School of Life, we're keen on what we call 'branching' moves, which involve a little shift to the right or to the left. These undramatic moves - which may involve a conversation with a colleague or boss about slightly changing how things are done - may hold a remarkably important part of the solution to a situation of dissatisfaction. We're often fatefully in love with the dramatic move.

I was pointing out, in a recent piece, that in certain ways, possibilities for good communication are greater in the work place than in the home. This was merely a suggestion and doesn't represent every home and every workplace. It's just that we operate in a society that very much valorises love and slightly demonises work. I was attempting to tilt the debate in a slightly different direction.

I only ever meant to provide a very selective journey through religion, picking out aspects which seem to me important, wise or beautiful. For me, a lot of religion is utterly unpalatable and in no way something I would recommend or back. I am a committed atheist and always have been. That said, many of the problems of our age stem from our inability to notice the gap left by the disappearance of God and to fill it adequately. This is really the project that Nietzsche announced when he declared the death of god in the 19th century. He wasn't gleeful at the prospect. He realised that there would be many areas in which the disappearance of religion would cause great difficulties. My book was an attempt to rescue some of what still seems relevant and interesting (the ritualistic aspects, the ethical emphasis, the use of art as a didactic medium) from a lot that cannot seem true or good to me (doctrine, dogma, murderous commands etc.).

It's a paradox that economists have been very wise to start to point out in recent years: levels of happiness do not keep rising in relation to incomes. Indeed, one striking fact sticks out: 60% of a person's life satisfaction can be connected up with the quality of their relationship. This is really rather a dazzling fact, given how much time politicians focus on certain priorities and how little time is ever spent trying to improve the quality of relationships. Yet serious political problems - drug abuse, family breakdown, criminality - always start in the home, with a range of psychological issues we're collectively very unsure how to address at a political level. We should start with the two ways in which people are educated: schools and media. In both areas, rewarding and emphasising the area of emotional intelligence seems key to me.

I'm especially fond of Montaigne; he is an extremely humane thinker, always alive to the possibility of absurdity and pomposity. You have to love someone who can write: 'Even on the highest throne, we are seated - still - upon our arses.' And who could write also: 'Kings and philosophers shit, and so do ladies.' This remains a refreshing attitude to take even in our own times.

Indeed, Abba seems a good choice. Also Richard Neutra and Eric Rohmer and London Grammar and... well, pretty much any talented artist at work today, of which there are millions...

Some of the problem must be placed at the door of the humanities themselves. Politicians pick up on the public mood; they don't create it. The problem is that academics have been singularly unable to explain to the society that pays for them quite what their value is. For the last 40 years, it's become ever harder for people in the departments of ENglish, Philosophy, German etc. to explain clearly to the public just why they matter so much - and they do! The result has been that in straightened economic times, the government can be very tempted to stop feeding a system that the public themselves show little love for.

I'd like to put on record that I have the deepest respect for TEFL teachers, either those teaching now or those who have taught in the past.

I published my first book, Essays in Love, at the age of 23. I then worked as a freelance journalists for my 20s before becoming a full time writer at 29 after the publication of my book, The Consolations of Philosophy. Since 2008, I've been running an organisation called www.theschooloflife.com - which now has a staff of 50 and branches in 12 countries. This keeps me fairly busy, but who is to say, really, whether that satisfies your criteria of 'work'?

In a mass society, it's really important to have a mass diffusion of ideas. And ideally, quite good ideas. So it's as important in my eyes to have intellectuals who speak only to the few as it is to have some that explicitly set out to address many .

It's always been part of the ambition of art to help its audiences. In Ancient Greece, tragedy was a medium that sought to create a cathartic set of emotions - and to help spectators come to a less shameful and less punitive view of disgrace and failure. Later on, Christian art had similarly therapeutic ambitions: a painter like Bellini or Memling was setting out to render the truths of the gospels more intuitive and more visceral. It's only in the last five minutes in the history of culture that we've become suspicious of the idea of charging art with a therapeutic mission. Modernism wished to tie itself to a m ore abstract, internal agenda, shunning the work previously associated with the church. In my eyes, this has been a pity, cutting art off from its deepest roots and its true motivation.

We exist in Melbourne, Seoul, Amsterdam, Paris, Antwerp and Istanbul.

Rejection is an extremely challenging event, I'm sorry to hear it. I've known so much rejection i feel hugely competent to speak at length on the subject. But not now, not here (in the offices of the Guardian). For now, I feel for you.

Rejection is an extremely challenging event, I'm sorry to hear it. I've known so much rejection i feel hugely competent to speak at length on the subject. But not now, not here (in the offices of the Guardian). For now, I feel for you.

The novel is a good example here. A novel like Madame Bovary is obviously not high brow in the technical sense. It enjoyed a large commercial success. It changed how we think of love to this day.

My general view is that academic philosophy has done an enormous disservice to the true ambitions of the subject. Nietzsche, for one, would never have been offered a job in any university.

My general view is that academic philosophy has done an enormous disservice to the true ambitions of the subject. Nietzsche, for one, would never have been offered a job in any university.

The shop is only at the start of its journey. We are launching The School of Life press in a few months, where we'll be putting together some very special books on a range of topics. At that point, our shop will reach its true audience and ambition.

The future is in our hands - but I really hope so. The trick is to get people to see the connection between good architecture and well-being - as well as financial benefits to a region.

The shop is only at the start of its journey. We are launching The School of Life press in a few months, where we'll be putting together some very special books on a range of topics. At that point, our shop will reach its true audience and ambition.

i agree that there's a great challenge around reach when it comes to more serious ideas. The danger is that the elite is extremely suspicious of people who try to spread knowledge more widely. Immediately the accusation comes that someone is a populariser. Ask SImon Schama and listen to what people say about him in the common rooms of top universities. THis is very unfortunate. IN a mass society, we need really ambitious people to tackle the tasks of diffusing good ideas widely.

The chief emotional well-being product out there is probably music, closely followed by cinema and literature.
Many of the products of the music industry are deeply sincere and extremely helpful, allowing for a measure of catharsis and release.
That said, there is always the danger of abuse, but with any luck, the most talented producers can avoid it.

Romanticism suggests that love and sex belong tightly together: in fact, i think they often can exist at one remove, allowing for the ugly - i know whereof i speak - to be tolerated.

Very little. Debates are a nightmarish medium for me. Along with quizzes, no more!