Marcel Proust, Jean Santeuil Quotes

Much that for us is fraught with with happiness or misery, remains almost unnoticed by the rest of the world.

This book of mine has not been manufactured: it has been garnered.

Sadness had reigned in undisputed sovereignty over his shadowed childhood.

The wretchedness of ordinary life, endured so gaily when it is part of our normal existence, is made far worse when it comes as something new, and is exaggerated by the working of the imagination.

Forgive me, Bertrand, for having on that day loved in you a beauty in which your self-esteem could take no pride, which could not in any way determine my affection.

When we are nice to others, we generally lose all claim to their respect.

Monsieur Beulier never engaged in thought except to speak the truth, and never spoke except to express his thought.

Even his mother, his own mother, had once accused him of being a snob.

The glutton usually realizes that gout is ever ready to pounce, and that alcohol is bad for him. But possible disaster weighs light in the scale against certain pleasure.

Jean's desires, like those of all men in love, were concentrated on the impossible.

It was not that Madame Santeuil's moral values had altered, but only her view of the moral values of others.