“A work in which there are theories is like an object which still has its price-tag on.” — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
“breathed into this quite ordinary prose a kind of life, continuous and full of feeling. My” — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
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
...a writer's works, like the water in an artesian well, mount to a height which is in proportion to the depth to… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
“The impression is for the writer what experiment is for the scientist, with the difference that in the scientist the work of… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
To write that essential book, a great writer does not need to invent it but merely to translate it, since it already… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
Each reader reads only what is already within himself. The book is only a sort of optical instrument which the writer offers… — 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
“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
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
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
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
Perhaps the pleasure one feels in writing is not the infallible test of the literary value of a page; perhaps it is… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
“It was evident to me then that I existed in the same manner as all other men, that I must grow old,… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
“...guided the sentence that was drawing to an end towards that which was waiting to begin, now hastening, now slackening the pace… — 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
“And more even than the painter, the writer, in order to achieve volume and substance, in order to attain to generality and,… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
“In theory one is aware that the earth revolves, but in practice one does not perceive it, the ground upon which one… — 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
“The novelist’s happy discovery was to think of substituting for those opaque sections, impenetrable by the human spirit, their equivalent in immaterial… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
In times like ours, where the growing complexity of life leaves us barely the time to read the newspapers, where the map… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
“In reality every reader is, while he is reading, the reader of his own self. The writer's work is merely a kind… — Marcel Proust Copy Share Image
“In reality, every reader, while he is reading, is the reader of his own self. The writer’s work is merely a kind… — 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
