When Proust urges us to evaluate the world properly, he repeatedly reminds us of the value of modest scenes.

We are sad at home and blame the weather and the ugliness of the buildings, but on the tropical island we learn that the state of the skies and the appearance of our dwellings can never on their own underwrite our joy nor condemn us to misery.

An argument in a couple: 2 people attempting to introduce each other to important truths - by panicked shouting.

Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.

It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.

We often lose our tempers not with those who are actually to blame; just with those who love us enough to forgive us our foul moods.

Anxiety is the handmaiden of contemporary ambition.