...but the loss of a memory, like the omission of a phrase during reading, rather than making for uncertainty, can lead to a premature certainty.

With women who do not love us, as with the "dear departed, " the knowledge that there is no hope left does not prevent us from continuing to wait.

It is a mistake, " Labruyère tells us, "to be in love without an ample fortune.

M. de Charlus persisted in not replying. I thought I could see a smile flicker about his lips: the smile of the man who looks down from a great height on the characters and manners of lesser men.

...for each of us sees clarity only in those ideas which have the same degree of confusion as his own.

We imagine always when we speak that it is our own ears, our own mind, that are listening.

Was the happiness of knowing these girls really unattainable? It would certainly not have been the first happiness of that sort which I had abandoned all hope of ever enjoying?

When a situation gets so bad that no solution seems possible there is left only murder and suicide, or both. These failing, one becomes a buffoon.

I grow dizzy when I recall that the number of manufactured tanks seems to have been more important to me than the vanished victims of racism.

Fancy Restaurant: one that serves cold soup on purpose.

Love should be the silver thread that runs through all your conduct.

Let him go, you filth! Let him go! You will not touch him again!

It's not just that families can't buy a home or start a business without some savings tucked away.

Look in the mirror. You must first love yourself before you can receive true love from someone else.

One of the truest tests of spiritual maturity is seeing the miraculous in the monotonous.

I hate to see the evening sun go down.

The truth - you've got to deal with it or it will kill you bit by bit.