Quotes from Marcel Proust, Swann's Way

... there was no need for him to hasten towards the attainment of a happiness already captured and held in a safe place, which would not escape his grasp again.

... the reigns of the kings and queens who are portrayed as kneeling with clasped hands in the windows of churches, were stained by oppression and bloodshed.

One felt that in her renunciation of life she had deliberately abandoned those places in which she might at least have been able to see the man she loved, for others where he had never trod.

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.

... Error, by force of contrast, enhances the triumph of Truth...

... sterile, splendid torture of understanding and loving...

Why did you not forget your heart also? I should never have let you have that back." ...

When one feels oneself smitten by love for a woman, one ought to say to oneself, "What are her surroundings? What has been her life? All one's future happiness lies in the answer.

the comfort of reclusion, the poetry of hibernation