Quotes from Marcel Proust

Si j'avais vos dispositions, je crois bien que j'écrirais du matin au soir

Certainly, the physical heartache which such a separation deals and which, through the body's terrible ability to keep records, renders any pain contemporary with all the periods in our lives when we have suffered,

it was like what used to be called a panopticon but a panopticon of years, a view not of a monument but of a person situated in the modifying perspective of Time.

Thus God, whose will it is that a few well-written books should exist, breathes disdain into the hearts of the Mmes Leroi, for He knows that, should they invite the Mmes de Villeparisis to dinner, then these would immediately leave their writing desks and order their carriages for eight o'clock.

O trabalho de causalidade, que acaba por produzir quase todos os efeitos possíveis, e por conseguinte também aqueles que havíamos julgado menos viáveis, esse trabalho é às vezes lento, tornando-se ainda um pouco mais lento devido ao nosso desejo - que, procurando acelerá-lo, o entrava - e também devido à nossa própria existência, e só se realiza depois de termos deixado de desejar e, muitas vezes, de viver.

The only true paradise is a paradise lost

it was the bridle which, so as to avoid all appearance of egotism, she herself used to curb the gratification which her friend was attempting to procure for her.

but more potent, which is not content with questioning the body but can command it, a febrifuge of the same order as the modern aspirin, which had not then come into use. We had not shaken the thermometer down below 99.5, and hoped that it would not have to rise from there

But one reads the papers as one wants to with a bandage over one's eyes without trying to understand the facts, listening to the soothing words of the editor as to the words of one's mistress. We are beaten and happy because we believe ourselves unbeaten and victorious

And even in my most carnal desires, orientated always in a particular direction, concentrated round a single dream, I might have recognised as their primary motive an idea, an idea for which I would have laid down my life, at the innermost core of which, as in my day-dreams while I sat reading all afternoon in the garden at Combray, lay the notion of perfection.

A large part of what we believe to be true (and this applies even to our final conclusions) with a persistence equalled only by our sincerity, springs from an original misconception of our premisses.

D??ar?dan dayat?lan manevi bir darbenin uzant?s? olan ac? ?ekil de?i?tirmek ister; planlar yap?p bilgi toplamaya çal??arak onu buharla?t?raca??m?z? umut ederiz; say?s?z ba?kala??m evresinden geçmesini dileriz, çünkü bu, ac?y? oldu?u gibi korumak kadar cesaret gerektirmez; ac?m?zla birlikte uzand???m?z yatak bize darac?k, sert, so?uk gelir.

It seems that events extend further than the moments in which they happen, and cannot be completely contained within them. Certainly, they spill over into the future through the memories we retain of them, but they also demand space in the time that precedes them. Certainly you will say that at that time we do not see them as they will actually be, but are they not also changed in our memory of them?

It is plain that the object of my quest, the truth, lies not in the cup but in myself.

Pois como a medicina é um compêndio dos erros sucessivos e contraditórios dos médicos, recorrendo aos melhores destes, corre-se o risco de solicitar uma verdade que será reconhecida falsa alguns anos mais tarde. De modo que acreditar na medicina seria a suprema loucura se não acreditar nela não fosse loucura maior, pois desse amontoado de erros se desvencilharam com o tempo algumas verdades.

The kind of plagiarism which it is most difficult for any human individual to avoid (and even for whole nations, who persist in reproducing their faults and aggravate them in so doing) is self-plagiarism.

Thus I who from infancy, had lived from day to day, with a sort of fixed idea of myself derived from others as well as myself, perceived for the first time, after witnessing the metamorphosis of all these people, that the time which had gone by for them, had gone by for me also and this revelation threw me into consternation.

Hurry up; there's no time to be lost; don't forget, it's Saturday!

En revanche, je crois bien qu'à mon agonie, quand tous mes autres " moi " seront morts, s'il vient à briller un rayon de soleil tandis que je pousserai mes derniers soupirs, le petit personnage barométrique se sentira bien aise, et ôtera son capuchon pour chanter: "ah! Enfin, il fait beau.

respite during

And once again I had recognized the taste of the crumb of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-flowers which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy), immediately the old gray house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like the scenery of a theater.

When one has fallen in love first with one painter, then with another, one can finally admire the whole museum in a way that is not chilly, for the admiration is made of successive loves, each of which in its time was exclusive, but which have finally coalesced.

Those who have minds have no regard for birth.

he asked himself whether this period, upon which he had entered, was to last much longer, whether presently his mind's eye would cease to behold that dear countenance, save as occupying a distant and diminished position, and on the verge of ceasing to shed on him the radiance of its charm.