The Optimist: One Man's Search for the Brighter Side of Life Hardback - 2009

Bill Clinton:
“I could draw you an ugly picture about climate change,” he said, “a world without oil, AIDS. I could give you the worst-case scenario. But just recently, I spent a day in Africa, in the Oldivai range, in the Ngorongoro Crater where the first human beings in the world are said to have been born. I was standing there, listening to the birds, looking at the sky, and talking to the Masai — reminding myself that I am 99.9 per cent the same as them — that I'm even 99.9 per cent the same as Nelson Mandela, which I find hard to believe. And I realised that all of human history is the story of us coming into contact in wider and wider circles and deciding over time that we are the same; that the other is one of us.”


Mick Jagger:
Soon afterwards I met Mick Jagger. He was kicking a deflated football around Kensington Park.

Whoa, I thought to myself, this visualisation thing is getting out of hand!

“Mick,” I said.

“Yeah?” He looked up.

“Are you optimistic?”

“Course I am!” he grinned.

I took a step closer. “Why are you optimistic?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Tell me more.”

He glanced anxiously at his friends. “It would take too long.”

“There’s no hurry,” I reassured him. “I’ve got all the time in the world.” Mick broke into a trot. “Come back!” I cried. Mick was afraid, afraid of the therapeutic journey. I watched his thin figure pirouette around the ball.

All in good time, I said to myself. All in good time.


Desmond Tutu:
“Listen, pessimists are usually people who are not actually doing too badly. But they’re cynical because they’re holding onto the wrong kind of things. They’re holding onto externals…”

Oh no, I thought, not again.

“You’re cynical because you think that external things can make you happy… you know, a smart car, a nice house, a beautiful wife, but it was discovered long ago… you don’t have to be a Christian to realise that. Ha! All of these material things, wealth, success, sex…they don’t actually have the capacity to satisfy.”


Ashley Judd:
“So... you’re writing a book about optimism?”

“I want to change the way people think... That’s why I wanted to talk to you, so we could… maybe…” There was silence on the other end of the line. “So, are you optimistic?”

“Oh, yes,” said Ashley, “otherwise I couldn’t do what I do.”

“Which is what exactly?”

“What we do in these places,” she said, “is reach out to poor people with upbeat, effective behavior-change messages focused on medically accurate sex education.”

“Nice…” I paused. “So, you’re optimistic?”

“The very fact we’re doing this work is cause for hope — twenty years ago these problems were brushed under the carpet. On the other hand,” she sighed, “prostitution is the third largest industry in the world. And it is getting more and more brutal as organised crime gets involved, hand-in-hand with extreme physical violence.”

"A delightfully quirky journey of self-discovery that will make your spirits soar."
— Daily Telegraph (UK)

"An entertaining read….Shorter is a witty writer… The Optimist won't convert confirmed pessimists but it is engaging enough to make you question negative habits — and perhaps restore a little faith in humanity's future."
— Financial Times

"Shorter is a snappy writer--fast, compelling, sympathetic and seemingly honest."
— The Guardian (UK)

"Part sitcom, part self-help, part pop psychology and part gentle philosophy. But mostly it's a book about writing a book…. What makes The Optimist a page-turner is that you end up caring about Laurence."
— Tribunemagazine.co.uk