As to the pretty girls who went past, from the day on which I had first known that their cheeks could be kissed, I had became curious about their souls. And the universe had appeared to me more interesting. — Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, Vol. II: Within a Budding Grove. (Modern Library… Continue reading Marcel Proust
The only true voyage, the only bath in the Fountain of Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees, that each of them is; and this we… Continue reading Marcel Proust
Love is a striking example of how little reality means to us. — Marcel Proust
It comes so soon, the moment when there is nothing left to wait for. ― Marcel Proust
We try to discover in things, which become precious to us on that account, the reflection of what our soul has projected on to them; we are disillusioned when we find that they are in reality devoid of the charm which they owed, in our minds, to the association of certain ideas; sometimes we mobilise… Continue reading Marcel Proust
There are mountainous, arduous days, up which one takes an infinite time to climb, and downward-sloping days which one can descend at full tilt, singing as one goes. ― Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way. (Vintage; Reissue edition, March 13, 1989) Originally published November 14th 1913.
Letting my sorrow flow free and sweet. — Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time Volume 2: In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower or Within a Budding Grave (Penguin Classics; Reprint edition January 25, 2005) Originally published 1919.
An hour is not merely an hour, it is a vase filled with perfumes, with sounds, with projects, with climates. What we call reality is a relation between those sensations and those memories which simultaneously encircle us … that unique relation which the writer must discover in order that he may link two different states… Continue reading Marcel Proust
The charms of a passing woman are usually in direct relation to the speed of her passing. ― Marcel Proust
It was she whom I loved and whom I could not therefore see without that anxiety, without that desire for something more, which destroys in us, in the presence of the person we love, the sensation of loving.” ― Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past, Part 2 – Within a Budding Grove, Vol. 2 (NBM… Continue reading Marcel Proust
