““Children don’t suffer from habit, which is why they get excited by some very key but simple things like puddles, jumping on the bed, sand and fresh bread. But we adults get ineluctably spoilt; which is why we seek ever more powerful stimulants (like fame and love). The trick – in Proust’s eyes – is to recover the powers of appreciation of a child in adulthood, to strip the veil of habit and therefore to start to look upon daily life with a new and more grateful sensitivity. This for Proust is what one group in the population does all the time: artists.””
