Quotes from Marcel Proust

until custom had changed the colour of the curtains, made the clock keep quiet, brought

be making her tea; or, if my aunt were feeling 'upset,' she would ask instead for her 'tisane,' and it would be my duty to shake out of the chemist's little package on to a plate the amount of lime-blossom required for infusion in boiling water.

it was one of those visitors who do not approach us till all the others have gone and we can be alone together; that is when we notice them, when we can say, "I'm all yours," and give them our full attention.

And, till we came to Doncières, M. de Charlus, without any fear of shocking his audience, would speak sometimes in the plainest terms of morals which, he declared, for his own part he did not consider either good or evil. He did this from cunning, to shew his breadth of mind, convinced as he was that his own morals aroused no suspicion in the minds of the faithful.

The difference in the making of these sorts of sorrows is that they come from the outside world and take the shortest and most painful route to the heart. The image of the woman we love, though we think it has a pristine authenticity, has actually been often made and remade by us. And the memory that wounds is not contemporaneous with the restored image; it dates from a very different time; it is one of the few witnesses to a monstrous past.

Ce tacere minunata, imi spuse el; un romancier pe care il vei citi mai tarziu pretindea ca inimilor ranite, precum este inima mea, li se potrivesc doar umbra si tacerea. Si iata, copilul meu, vine in viata un ceas, de care tu esti inca foarte departe, cand ochii obositi nu mai suporta decat o lumina, cea pe care o noapte frumoasa ca aceasta o pregateste si o picura odata cu intunericul, un ceas cand urechile nu mai pot asculta alta muzica decat cea cantata de clarul de luna pe flautul tacerii.

He made what apology he could and hurried home, glad that the satisfaction of his curiosity had preserved their love intact, and that, having feigned for so long a sort of indifference towards Odette, he had not now, by his jealousy, given her the proof that he loved her too much, which, between a pair of lovers, for ever dispenses the recipient from the obligation to love enough. He

But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfalteringly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.

The hierophant was not even conscious of my absence. When he heard of it, he was distressed: "What, you didn't see me carving the turkeys myself?" I replied that having failed, so far, to see Rome, Venice, Siena, the Prado, the Dresden gallery, the Indies, Sarah in Phèdre, I had learned to resign myself, and that I would add his carving of turkeys to my list.

Of the state of mind which, in that far off year, had been simply an unending torture to me, nothing survived. For there is in this world in which everything wears out, everything perishes, one thing that crumbles into dust, that destroys itself still more completely, leaving behind still fewer traces of itself than Beauty: namely Grief.

Lastly, would not society become secretly more hierarchical as it became outwardly more democratic?

Mas, ai! — pois, para o beijo, tão mal colocados estão as nossas narinas e os nossos olhos como malfeitos os lábios —, eis que de súbito os meus olhos cessaram de ver, e o meu nariz, por sua vez , esmagando-se, não sentiu mais nenhum odor, e, sem conhecer mais , por isso, o gosto do rosa desejado, eu soube, por esses detestáveis sinais, que estava enfim beijando as faces de Albertine.

Even if we live in a hermetically sealed compartment, associations of ideas, memories continue to act upon us.

Nature, like the catastrophe at Pompeii or the metamorphosis of a nymph, freezes us into an accustomed cast of countenance. In the same way, the intonations of our voice express our philosophy of life, what one says to oneself at each moment about things.

But except Cinq-Mars I have never been able to read a thing by M. de Vigny. I get so bored that the book falls from my hands.

There can be no peace of mind in love, since what one has obtained is never anything but a new starting-point for further desires

But ideas transform themselves in us, they overcome our initial resistance to them, and feed upon rich reserves of intellect that existed ready-made for them without our knowing.

Our social existence, like an artist's studio, is filled with abandoned sketches.

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In such a case we feel more compassionate towards those unknown to us, whom we can only imagine, than towards those whose vulgar daily life is lived close to us, unless we feel completely one of them, one flesh with them; patriotism works this miracle, we stand by our country as we do by ourselves in a love quarrel.

Mamma was the first person who had given her the pleasure of feeling that her peasant existence, with its simple joys and sorrows, might offer some interest, might be a source of grief or pleasure to some one other than herself. My

Pois o que nós julgamos seja o nosso amor, o nosso ciúme, não é uma mesma paixão contínua, indivisível. Compõem-se eles de uma infinidade de amores sucessivos, de ciúmes diferentes, mas, por sua multidão ininterrupta, dão a impressão da continuidade, a ilusão da unidade.

To a person who loves, is not absence the most certain, the most effective, the most durable, the most indestructible, the most faithful of presences?

Wenn man etwas tut, um anderen zu gefallen, kann es nicht gelingen, aber bei den Dingen, die man tut, um sich selbst zu zufriedenzustellen, besteht immer die Aussicht, dass sie auch das Interesse von anderen wecken.