...the rule among the human race – a rule that naturally admits of exceptions – is that the reputedly hard are the weak whom nobody wanted, and that … - Marcel Proust

...Hard people are weak people whom nobody wants, and the strong, caring little whether they are wanted or not, have alone that meekness which the common herd mistake for weakness.

Ah, in those earliest days of love how naturally the kisses spring into life! So closely, in their profusion, do they crowd together that lovers would find it as hard to count the kisses exchanged in an hour as to count the flowers in a meadow in May.

I saw that what had appeared to me to be not worth twenty francs when it had been offered to me for twenty francs in the house of ill fame, where it was then for me simply a woman desirous of earning twenty francs, might be worth more than a million, more than one's family, more than all the most coveted positions in life if one had begun by imagining her to embody a strange creature, interesting to know, difficult to seize and to hold.

Ma quando di un lontano passato non rimane più nulla, dopo la morte delle creature, dopo la distruzione delle cose, soli e più fragili ma più vivaci, più immateriali, più persistenti, più fedeli, l'odore e il sapore permangono ancora a lungo, come anime, a ricordare, ad attendere, a sperare, sulla rovina di tutto, a sorreggere senza tremare - loro, goccioline quasi impalpabili - l'immenso edificio del ricordo.