"An hour or so later he received a note from Odette. Swann had left his cigarette case at her house. "If only," she wrote, "you had also forgotten yo… - Marcel Proust

A w końcu, jeśli chwile wytchnienia lub dystrakcji towarzyskich okażą mi się konieczne, czułem, że bardziej od rozmów intelektualnych, które ludzie światowi uważają za pożyteczne dla pisarza, miłostki z zakwitającymi dziewczętami będą moim pokarmem wybranym, któremu ostatecznie dam przystęp do mojej wyobraźni, przypominającej owego słynnego konia karmionego tylko różami.

We imagine always when we speak that it is our own ears, our own mind, that are listening.

And indeed when we are no longer in love with women whom we meet after many years, is there not the abyss of death between them and ourselves, just as much as if they were no longer of this world, since the fact that we are no longer in love makes the people that they were or the person that we were then as good as dead?