In reality every reader is, while he is reading, the reader of his own self. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument which he offers… - Marcel Proust

Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.

There is nothing like desire for obstructing any resemblance between what one says and what one has on one's mind.

As a man with imagination you can enjoy only in regret or in anticipation — that is, in the past or in the future.

...the seaside life and the life of travel made me realise that the theatre of the world is stocked with fewer settings than actors, and with fewer actors than situations.