Wars are fought for the benefit of oligarchs, triumphs bought with the blood of peons.
Marcel ProustHappiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.
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 ProustI understood that all the material of a literary work was in my past life, I understood that I had acquired it in the midst of frivolous amusements, in idleness, in tenderness and in pain, stored up by me without my divining its destination or even its survival, as the seed has in reserve all the ingredients which will nourish the plant.
Marcel ProustSo we don't believe that life is beautiful because we don't recall it but if we get a whiff of a long-forgotten smell we are suddenly intoxicated and similarly we think we no longer love the dead because we don't remember them but if by chance we come across an old glove we burst into tears.
Marcel Proust