In love, happiness is an abnormal state.

An hour or so later he received a note from Odette. Swann had left his cigarette case at her house. "If only," she wrote, "you had also forgotten your heart! I should never have let you have it back.

I blame the newspapers because every day they call our attention to insignificant things, while three or four times in our lives,we read books that contain essential things. Once we feverishly tear the band of paper enclosing our newspapers, things should change and we should find--I do not know--the Pensées by Pascal!

Your soul is a dark forest. But the trees are of a particular species, they are genealogical trees.

Friendship is in the end no more than: " . . . a lie which seeks to make us believe that we are not irremediably alone."

There is no more ridiculous custom than the one that makes you express sympathy once and for all on a given day to a person whose sorrow will endure as long as his life. Such grief, felt in such a way is always present, it is never too late to talk about it, never repetitious to mention it again.

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.