Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proustwas a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental novel À la recherche du temps perdu, published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest authors...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth10 July 1871
CountryFrance
eye editors listening
One reads the papers as one wants to with a bandage over one's eyes without trying to understand the facts, listening to the soothing words of the editor as to the words of one s mistress.
people mind tragedy
It is the tragedy of other people that they are to us merely showcases for the very perishable collections of our own mind.
past fugitive remains
The past not merely is not fugitive, it remains present.
relationship mistake choices
It is a mistake to speak of a bad choice in love, since, as soon as a choice exists, it can only be bad.
art self joy
A sort of egotistical self-evaluation is unavoidable in those joys in which erudition and art mingle and in which aesthetic pleasure may become more acute, but not remain as pure.
dream song dust
A collection of bad love songs, tattered from overuse, has to touch us like a cemetery or a village. So what if the houses have no style, if the graves are vanishing under tasteless ornaments and inscriptions? Before an imagination sympathetic and respectful enough to conceal momentarily its aesthetic disdain, that dust may release a flock of souls, their beaks holding the still verdant dreams that gave them an inkling of the next world and let them rejoice or weep in this world.
lying heart doe
The heart does not lie.
habit proportion absurdity
The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity.
memories our-memories
That translucent alabaster of our memories.
faces study appearance
And so when studying faces, we do indeed measure them, but as painters, not as surveyors.
children soul age
When we have passed a certain age, the soul of the child we were and the souls of the dead from whom we have sprung come to lavish on us their riches and their spells.
octopus our-words body
But to ask pity of our body is like discoursing in front of an octopus, for which our words can have no more meaning than the sound of the tides, and with which we should be appalled to find ourselves condemned to live.
tasks duty interpreter
The duty and the task of a writer are those of an interpreter.
oysters knives parent
Until I saw Chardin's painting, I never realized how much beauty lay around me in my parents' house, in the half-cleared table, in the corner of a tablecloth left awry, in the knife beside the empty oyster shell.