“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...”

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that youve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you sa...”

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there i...”

“Man's greatest wisdom is to choose his obsession well.”

“Extinguish my eyes, I'll go on seeing you.Seal my ears, I'll go on hearing you.And without feet I can make my way to you,without a mouth I can swear your name.Break off my arms, I'll take hold of y...”

“All the stories I would like to write persecute me. When I am in my chamber, it seems as if they are all around me, like little devils, and while one tugs at my ear, another tweaks my nose, and eac...”

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”