Quotes From "The Captive & The Fugitive" By Marcel Proust

Every woman feels that the greater her power over a man, the more impossible it is to leave him except by sudden flight: a fugitive precisely because a queen. Marcel Proust

But I consoled myself with the reflexion that in spite of everything she was for me the real point of intersection between reality and dream. Marcel Proust

So difficult is it for us to know, with the dead as with the living, whether a thing would cause them joy or sorrow! Marcel Proust

She was capable of causing me pain, but no longer any joy. Pain alone kept my wearisome attachment alive. Marcel Proust

As with the future, it is not all at once but grain by grain that one savours the past. Marcel Proust

..the mode by which he "heard" the universe and projected it far beyond himself. Perhaps it was in this, I said to Albertine, this unknown quality of a unique world which no other composer had ever yet revealed, that the most authentic proof of genius lies, even more than in the content of the work itself. "Even in literature?” Albertine inquired. “Even in literature.” And thinking again of the sameness of Vinteuil’s works, I explained to Albertine that the great men of letters have never created more than a single work, or rather have never done more than refract through various media an identical beauty which they bring into the world. “If it were not so late, my sweet, ” I said to her, “I would show you this quality in all the writers whose works you read while I’m asleep, I would show you the same identity as in Vinteuil. These key-phrases, which you are beginning to recognise as I do, my little Albertine, the same in the sonata, in the septet, in the other works, would be, say for instance in Barbey d Aurevilly, a hidden reality revealed by a physical sign, the physiological blush.. Marcel Proust

I could no longer desire physically without feeling a need for her, without suffering from her absence. Marcel Proust

I was so much in the habit of having Albertine with me, and now I suddenly saw a new aspect of Habit. Hitherto I had regarded it chiefly as an annihilating force which suppresses the originality and even the awareness of one's perceptions; now I saw it as a dread deity, so riveted to one's being, its insignificant face so incrusted in one's heart, that if it detaches itself, if it turns away from one, this deity that one had barely distinguished inflicts on one sufferings more terrible than any other and is then as cruel as death itself. Marcel Proust

Memory, instead of being a duplicate, always present before one's eyes, of the various events of one's life, is rather a void from which at odd moments a chance resemblance enables ones to resuscitate dead recollections, but even then, there are innumerable little details which have not fallen into that potential reservoir of memory, and which will remain for ever unverifiable. Marcel Proust

When we have passed a certain age, the soul of the child that we were and the souls of the dead from whom we sprang come and shower upon us their riches and their spells, asking to be allowed to contribute to the new emotions which we feel and in which, erasing their former image, we recast them in an original creation. Marcel Proust

I must choose to cease from suffering or to cease from loving. Marcel Proust

We consider it innocent to desire, and heinous that the other person should do so. Marcel Proust

One wants to be understood because one wants to be loved, and one wants to be loved because one loves. Marcel Proust

We would like the truth to be revealed to us by novel signs, not by a sentence, a sentence similar to those which we have constantly repeated to ourselves. The habit of thinking prevents us at times from experiencing reality, immunises us against it, makes it seem no more than another thought. There is no idea that does not carry in itself its possible refutation, no word that does not imply its opposite. Marcel Proust

The habit of thinking prevents us at times from experiencing reality, immunises us against it, makes it seem no more than any other thought. Marcel Proust

So what I had believed to be nothing to me was simply my entire life. How ignorant one is of oneself. Marcel Proust

Lying is essential to humanity. It plays as large a part perhaps as the quest for pleasure, and is moreover governed by that quest. One lies in order to protect one's pleasure, or one's honour if the disclosure of one's pleasure runs counter to one's honour. One lies all one's life long, even, especially, perhaps only, to those who love one. For they alone make us fear for our pleasure and desire their esteem. Marcel Proust

Lies, so often misleading and which form the substance of all conversations, are less effective in covering up a feeling of dislike or of self-interest, or a visit one would rather people did not know about, or a one-day fling one wants to conceal from one's wife - than a good reputation is in utterly overshadowing disreputable habits. Marcel Proust

It is a mistake to speak of a bad choice in love, since as soon as there is a choice it can only be a bad one. Marcel Proust

I spent many a charming evening talking and playing with Albertine, but none so sweet as when I was watching her sleep. Marcel Proust

Let an illness, a duel, a runaway horse make us see death face to face, and how richly we should have enjoyed the life of pleasure, the travels in unknown lands, which are about to be snatched from us! And no sooner is the danger past than we resume once more the same dull life in which none of those delights existed for us. Marcel Proust

Love is space and time made perceptible to the heart. Marcel Proust

People are not always very tolerant of the tears which they themselves have provoked. Marcel Proust

As soon as jealousy is discovered, it is regarded by the person who is its object as a challenge which justifies deception. Marcel Proust

Gardeners produce flowers that are delicious dreams, and others too that are like nightmares. Marcel Proust

A person has no need of sincerity, nor even of skill in lying, in order to be loved. Here I mean by love reciprocal torture. Marcel Proust