There is no doubt that a person's charms are less frequently a cause of love than a remark such as: 'No, this evening I shan't be free'.
Marcel ProustOur vanity, our passions, our spirit of imitation, our abstract intelligence, our habits have long been at work, and it is the task of art to undo this work of theirs, making us travel back in the direction from which we have come to the depths where what has really existed lies unknown within us.
Marcel ProustWhen I went to Venice I found that my dream had become-incredibly, but quite simply-my address.
Marcel ProustThe thirst for something other than what we have…to bring something new, even if it is worse, some emotion, some sorrow; when our sensibility, which happiness has silenced like an idle harp, wants to resonate under some hand, even a rough one, and even if it might be broken by it.
Marcel Proust