Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
... we made much less happy by the kindness of a great writer, which strictly speaking we find only in his books,… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
“But the true nature which we repress continues nevertheless to abide within us. Thus it is that at times, if we read… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
“All the while that Jean was listening to him, he was vaguely conscious that what gives literature its reality is the result… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
Pour e crire ce livre essentiel, le seul livre vrai, un grand e crivain n'a pas, dans le sens courant, a' l'inventer… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
These dreams reminded me that, since I wished some day to become a writer, it was high time to decide what sort… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
“...and he would have also to endure his book like a form of fatigue, to accept it like a discipline, build it… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
“It may be that I might have inferred from the pages that life teaches us to diminish the value of what we… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
“But even with respect to the most insignificant things in life, none of us constitutes a material whole, identical for everyone, which… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
“It seemed to me that the beauty of the trees was hers also, and that, as for the spirit of those horizons,… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
“Whatever one may say, writing a novel is a very different thing from living one. All the same our lives are not… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
I perceived that to express those impressions, to write that essential book, which is the only true one, a great writer does… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
“Part of the beauty—and it is the original flaw in this type of literature, from which the famous Lundis are not exempt—lies… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
“Then it would begin to seem unintelligible, as the thoughts of a former existence must be to a reincarnate spirit; the subject… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer's work is only a kind of optical instrument he… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
No days, perhaps, of all our childhood are ever so fully lived as those that we had regarded as not being lived… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
I blame the newspapers because every day they call our attention to insignificant things, while three or four times in our lives,we… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
“We feel very strongly that our own wisdom begins where that of the author leaves off and we could like him to… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
“machinery' of life at Versailles; and was able, too, to persuade herself that her silence, a shade of good humour or of arrogance on… — Marcel Proust Copy Share
“For her [Françoise], wealth was like a necessary condition without which virtue would lack both merit and charm. She made so little distinction between… — Marcel Proust Copy Share
Knowing does not always allow us to prevent, but at least the things that we know, we hold them, if not in our hands,… — Marcel Proust Copy Share
...a writer's works, like the water in an artesian well, mount to a height which is in proportion to the depth to which suffering… — Marcel Proust Copy Share
“Then from those profound slumbers we awake in a dawn, not knowing who we are, being nobody, newly born, ready for anything, the brain… — Marcel Proust Copy Share
“Art extracted from the most familiar reality does indeed exist and its domain is perhaps the largest of any.” — Marcel Proust Copy Share
I find very reasonable the Celtic belief that the souls of our dearly departed are trapped in some inferior being, in an animal, aplant,… — Marcel Proust Copy Share
“When you heard anyone in the middle of a talk which was being deliberately kept off the Affair announce furtively some piece of political… — Marcel Proust Copy Share
“We betroth ourselves by proxy, and then feel obliged to marry the intermediary.” — Marcel Proust Copy Share
“But the old lady on the contrary, far from justifying her daughter’s fears, felt every time someone of her own age “disappeared” that she… — Marcel Proust Copy Share
Often it is just lack of imagination that keeps a man from suffering very much. — Marcel Proust Copy Share
“When we are nice to others, we generally lose all claim to their respect.” — Marcel Proust Copy Share
“Nobility is often no more than the inner aspect which our egotistical feelings assume when we have not yet named and classified them.” — Marcel Proust Copy Share
