“You know Balbec so well - do you have friends in the area?'I have friends wherever there are companies of trees, wounded but not vanquished, which huddle together with touching obstinacy to implore...”

“... there was no need for him to hasten towards the attainment of a happiness already captured and held in a safe place, which would not escape his grasp again.”

“... the idea that 'Life' contains situations more interesting and more romantic than all the romances ever written.”

“He suffered greatly from being shut up among all these people whose stupidity and absurdities wounded him all the more cruelly since, being ignorant of his love, incapable, had they known of it, of...”

“We have such numerous interests in our lives that it is not uncommon, on a single occasion, for the foundations of a happiness that does not yet exist to be laid down alongside the intensification ...”

“She observed the dumb-show by which her neighbour was expressing her passion for music, but she refrained from copying it. This was not to say that, for once that she had consented to spend a few m...”

“If pain must come, may it come quickly. Because I have a life to live, and I need to live it in the best way possible. If he has to make a choice, may he make it now. Then I will either wait for hi...”

“Well, nowIf little by little you stop loving meI shall stop loving youLittle by littleIf suddenly you forget meDo not look for meFor I shall already have forgotten youIf you think it long and mad t...”

“Most things are forgotten over time. Even the war itself, the life-and-death struggle people went through is now like something from the distant past. Were so caught up in our everyday lives that e...”

“She's the kind of girl who brings you to the moon without you even being aware. The kind of girl you trip in love with, The kind of girl you never forget.”

“Not every story is about a girl who dreams of romance, waiting impatiently and dramatically for a tall, handsome, strong man to fall hopelessly in love with, in the foolish hope that he will protec...”

“But perhaps she has given me the strength and the madness to write about the things that I once desired so long to put against the world.”

“But who can remember pain, once its over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.”

“I know what you are learning to endure. There is nothing to be done. Make sure nothing is wasted. Take notes. Remember it all, every insult, every tear. Tattoo it on the inside of your mind. In lif...”

“My mind, I know, I can prove, hovers on hummingbird wings. It hovers and it churns. And when it's operating at full thrust, the churning does not stop. The machines do not rest, the systems rarely ...”