1,085 Quotes by Marcel Proust

My dears, laugh at me if you like; it is not conventionally beautiful, but there is something in its quaint old face which pleases me. If it could play the piano, I am sure it would really play.

Like a fruit hidden among its leaves, which has grown and ripened unobserved by man, until it falls of its own accord, there came upon us one night the kitchen-maid's confinement.

... until it had acquired the strength to create in my mind a fresh example of absolute, unproductive beauty...

... like an entirely cloudless sky when one is going mountaineering...

... washed clean like a porcelain, with housewifely care...

... with a quiet suggestion of infinity...

a constant repetition and a boundless incongruity of useless but indestructible objects.

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 tone, the earth of the roads, the roofs of the town, seemed as though caught up in the unity of a brand-new world. And all that Jean was feeling seemed without effort to chime with the surrounding oneness, and he was conscious of the perfect joy which is the gift of harmony.

... novels contained something inexpressibly delicious.