Memory, instead of being a duplicate, always present before one's eyes, of the various events of one's life, is rather a void from which at odd momen… - Marcel Proust

"With women who do not love us, as with the "dear departed," the knowledge that there is no hope left does not prevent us from continuing to wait."

When we have passed a certain age, the soul of the child that we were and the souls of the dead from whom we sprang come and shower upon us their riches and their spells, asking to be allowed to contribute to the new emotions which we feel and in which, erasing their former image, we recast them in an original creation.

At the start of a new love as its ending, we are not exclusively attached to the object of that love, but rather the desire to love from which it will presently arise (and, later on, the memory it leaves behind) wanders voluptuously through a zone of interchangeable charms — simply natural charms, it may be, gratification of appetite, enjoyment of one's surroundings — which are harmonious enough for it not to feel at a loss in the presence of any one of them.