No pain is too small if it hurts, but any pain is too big if it's cherished.

Well, the attractive thing about the subject of happiness is that it is notoriously difficult to write.

You can only give things up once they start to let you down.

Proust is a hero of mine. I read 'A la recherche' in one go, and I'm a very slow reader. It had an astonishing impact, reading it on my own and being my main company. I think Proust is the most intelligent person to ever have written a novel.

People never remeber happiness with the care that they lavish on preserving every detail of their suffering.

It seems people spend the majority of their lives believing they're dying, with the only consolation being that at one point they get to be right.

It's no use imagining that bringing great writers together inevitably precipitates great conversation.