For, just as in the beginning it is formed by desire, so afterwards love is kept in existence only by painful anxiety.

It is a mistake to speak of a bad choice in love, since, as soon as a choice exists, it can only be bad.

She poured out Swann's tea, inquired "Lemon or cream?" and, on his answering "Cream, please," said to him with a laugh: "A cloud!" And as he pronounced it excellent, "You see, I know just how you like it." This tea had indeed seemed to Swann, just as it seemed to her; something precious, and love has such a need to find some justification for itself, some guarantee of duration, in pleasures which without it would have no existence and must cease with its passing.

All the mind's activity is easy if it is not subjected to reality.

People don't know when they are happy. They're never so unhappy as they think they are.

It is always thus, impelled by a state of mind which is destined not to last, we make our irrevocable decisions

She was "a woman of uncertain age.