Why, when we regain consciousness, is it not an identity other than the one we had previously that is embodied in us? It is not clear what dictates the choice nor why, among the millions of human beings we might be, it is the being we were the day before that we unerringly grasp.

We do not include the pleasures we enjoy in sleep in the inventory of the pleasures we have experienced in the course of our existence.

Once in my room I had to stop every loophole, to close the shutters, to dig my own grave as I turned down the bed-clothes, to wrap myself in the shroud of my nightshirt.

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