Quotes from Marcel Proust

I never allow myself to be influenced in the smallest degree either by atmospheric disturbances or by the arbitrary divisions of what is known as Time.

left with me were more difficult to extinguish than the memory of their original cause.

Like an inspired and prolific poet, who never refuses to spread beauty to the humblest places, which until now did not seem to share the domain of art, the sun still warmed the bountiful energy of the dung heap, of the unevenly paved yard, and of the pear tree worn down like an old serving maid.

It was in the defects that they [servants] invariably acquired that I learned of my own natural, invariable defects, and their character presented me with a sort of negative proof of my own.

Às vezes erguia eu os olhos a algum vasto apartamento antigo cujos postigos não estavam fechados e onde homens e mulheres anfíbios, readaptando-se cada noite a viver em outro elemento que de dia, lentamente nadavam no denso licor que, ao anoitecer, surde incessantemente do reservatório das lâmpadas para encher as peças até à borda das suas paredes de pedra e vidro, e no seio do qual eles propagavam, deslocando os corpos, redemoinhos untuosos e dourados.

Je moi-même semblait en fait à avoir devenir la sujet de ma livre: un église, un quatuor, et la amitié entre François I and Charles V.

sterile, splendid torture of understanding and loving...

Be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the gentle gardeners who make our souls blossom.

the sentiments that Albertine had left with me were more difficult to extinguish than the memory of their original cause.

Ambition is more intoxicating than fame; desire makes all things blossom, possession wilts them; it is better to dream your life than to live it, even if living it means dreaming it, though both less mysteriously and less vividly, in a murky and sluggish dream, like the straggling dream in the feeble awareness of ruminant creatures.

De fantômes poursuivis, oubliés, recherchés à nouveau quelquefois pour une seule entrevue et afin de toucher à une vie irréelle laquelle aussitôt s'enfuyait, ces chemins de Balbec en étaient pleins.

felt myself still reliving a past which was no longer anything more than the history of another person;

Life is like that little sweetheart. We dream it and we love it in dreaming it. We should not try to live it: otherwise, like that little boy, we will plunge into stupidity, though not at one swoop, for in life everything degenerates by imperceptible nuances. At the end of ten years we no longer recognize our dreams; we deny them, we live, like a cow, for the grass we are grazing on at the moment. And who knows if our wedding with death might not lead to our conscious immortality?

For, since a purely musical work contains none of those logical sequences, the interruption or confusion of which, in spoken or written language, is a proof of insanity, so insanity diagnosed in a sonata seemed to him as mysterious a thing as the insanity of a dog or a horse, although instances may be observed of these.

In my most desperate moments, I have never conceived of anything more horrible than a law office.

She lived her life, but I may have been the only one to dream it.

The paradoxes of today are the prejudices of tomorrow.

The fault I find with our journalism is that it forces us to take an interest in some fresh triviality or other every day,

La cordialité surfait avec autant de plaisir qu'en prend la taquinerie à déprécier.

The sad work of a true artist speaks to us in that tone of people who have suffered, who force anyone who has suffered to drop everything and listen.

It's a funny thing, now; I very often think of my poor wife, but I cannot think of her very much at any one time." "Often, but a little at a time, like poor old Swann," became one of my grandfather's favourite phrases, which he would apply to all kinds of things.

Photography acquires a certain dignity, which it does not normally have, when it is not just a reproduction of reality but can show us things that no longer exist.

Notre sagesse commence où celle de l'auteur finit, nous voudrions qu'il nous donnât des réponses, quand tout ce qu'il peut faire est de nous donner des désirs.

Eu amava verdadeiramente a sra. de Guermantes. A maior felicidade que poderia pedir a Deus seria que fizesse tombar sobre ela todas as calamidades e que, arruinada, desconsiderada, despojada de todos os privilégios que dela me separavam, não tendo mais casa onde morar, nem pessoas que consentissem em saudá-la, viesse pedir-me asilo. Imaginava-a fazendo tal coisa.