1,085 Quotes by Marcel Proust

When two people part it is the one who is not in love who makes the tender speeches.

Love? I make it often, but I never talk about it.

For the instinct of imitation and absence of courage govern society and the mob alike.

We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.

One says the things which one feels the need to say, and which the other will not understand: one speaks for oneself alone.

A book is no mere book anymore than man can be mere man. A book was like an individual man, unmatched and with no cause of existence beyond himself.

[...] to me a new book was not one of a number of similar objects, but was like an individual man, unmatched, and with no cause of existence beyond himself [...]

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

... Odette seemed a fascinating and desirable woman, the attraction which her body held for him had aroused a painful longing to secure the absolute mastery of even the tiniest particles of her heart.