For women who do not love us, as for the "disappeared", knowing that we no longer have any hope does not prevent us form continuing to wait. We live on our guard, on watch; women whose son has gone asea on a dangerous exploration imagine at any minute, although it has long been certain that he has perished, that he will enter, miraculously saved, and healthy.
Marcel ProustBut when one believes in the reality of things, making them visible by artificial means is not quite the same as feeling that they are close at hand.
Marcel ProustWhen we have passed a certain age, the soul of the child we were and the souls of the dead from whom we have sprung come to lavish on us their riches and their spells.
Marcel ProustOur desires cut across one another, and in this confused existence it is rare for happiness to coincide with the desire that clamoured for it.
Marcel ProustNine tenths of the ills from which intelligent people suffer spring from their intellect.
Marcel ProustIndeed, among the lesser auxiliaries to success in love, an absence, the declining of an invitation to dinner, an unintentional, unconscious harshness are of more service than all the cosmetics and fine clothes in the world.
Marcel ProustWhen I was small child, all that belonged to conservative society was fashionable, and no republicans were welcome in the smartersalons. People living in such a milieu could imagine that the impossibility of ever inviting an "opportunist", much less a "radical", was a thing that would last forever, like gas lamps and horse-drawn omnibuses. But similar to kaleidoscopes turning from time to time, society successively places in various ways elements which were thought to be immutable and creates a new composition.
Marcel Proust