... But all the feelings that evoke in us the joy or the misfortune of a real person are only produced in us through the intermediary of an image of that joy or that misfortune; the ingeniousness of the first novelist was in understanding that, in the apparatus of our emotions, since the image is the only essential element, the simplification which consists of purely and simply suppressing the factual characters is a definitive improvement.

Reality is never more than a first step towards an unknown on the road to which one can never progress very far.

That translucent alabaster of our memories.

The time at our disposal each day is elastic; the passions we feel dilate it, those that inspire us shrink it, and habit fills it.

Love is a striking example of how little reality means to us.

An hour is not merely an hour, it is a vase full of scents and sounds and projects and climates.

I had come in time to learn that it was a mistake to smile a friendly smile when somebody made a fool of me.