19 quotes found
“This book of mine has not been manufactured: it has been garnered.”
“Even his mother, his own mother, had once accused him of being a snob.”
“When we are nice to others, we generally lose all claim to their respect.”
“Sadness had reigned in undisputed sovereignty over his shadowed childhood.”
“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.”
“Much that for us is fraught with with happiness or misery, remains almost unnoticed by the rest of the world.”
“Without inquiring too deeply into the causes which make it possible to find subjects of gaiety always close at hand, the proof of that possibility can be found in the fact that persons of sensitive...”
“All the while that Jean was listening to him, he was vaguely conscious that what gives literature its reality is the result of work accomplished by the human spirit, no matter what the material fac...”
“When Jean and his mother left Etreuilles, Monsieur Sureau had gathered for them great boxfuls of hawthorn and of snowballs which Madame Santeuil had not the courage to refuse. But, as soon as Jean'...”
“For a young man has strong imagination but poor judgment, so that he imagines others to be as big as he is but considers himself to be very small. He has unbounded trust in the universe but is cons...”
“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.”
“It is said that nothing in our lives is ever lost, that nothing can prevent its having been. That is why, so very often the weight of the past lies ineluctably upon the present. But that is why it ...”
“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.”
“Monsieur Beulier never engaged in thought except to speak the truth, and never spoke except to express his thought.”
“He imagined himself lying there, unable to sleep, thinking of his mother, separated from her by the unresponsive blankets tucked too tightly round him, feeling the ceaseless thumping of his heart i...”
“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.”
“Then his tears came once more, and feeling cold he went into his dressing-room to look for something to throw around his shoulders. But he had lost control of his hand so that it moved like a brain...”
“The woods, the vines, the very stones, were at one with the brightness of the sun and the unblemished sky, and even when the sky grew overcast, the multitude of leaves, as in a sudden change of ton...”
