Marcel Proust

Marcel Proust

Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time; earlier translated as Remembrance of Things Past). It was published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927.

Read more about Marcel Proust:  Biography, Early Writing, In Search of Lost Time, Bibliography

Famous quotes by marcel proust:

    “I find very reasonable the Celtic belief that the souls of our dearly departed are trapped in some inferior being, in an animal, a plant, an inanimate object, indeed lost to us until the day, which for some never arrives, when we find that we pass near the tree, or come to possess the object which is their prison. Then they quiver, call us, and as soon as we have recognized them, the spell is broken. Freed by us, they have vanquished death and return to live with us.”
    —Marcel Proust (1871–1922)

    “‘... In truth I find it ridiculous that a man of his intelligence suffer over this type of person, who is not even interesting, for she is said to be foolish’, she added with all the wisdom of people who are not in love, who find that a sensible man should only be unhappy over a person who is worthwhile; it is almost tantamount to being surprised that anyone deign having cholera for having been infected with a creature as small as the vibrio bacilla.”
    —Marcel Proust (1871–1922)

    “Then, bringing me the joy we feel when wee see a work by our favorite painter which differs from any other that we know, or if we are led before a painting of which we have until then only seen a pencil sketch, if a musical piece heard only on the piano appears before us clothed in the colors of the orchestra, my grandfather called me the [hawthorn] hedge at Tansonville, saying, ‘You who are so fond of hawthorns, look at this pink thorn, isn’t it lovely?’”
    —Marcel Proust (1871–1922)

    “To get through their days, nervous natures such as mine have various ‘speeds’ as do automobiles. There are uphill and difficult day which take an eternity to climb, and downhill days which can be quickly descended.”
    —Marcel Proust (1871–1922)

    “... But all the feelings that evoke in us the joy or the misfortune of a real person are only produced in us through the intermediary of an image of that joy or that misfortune; the ingeniousness of the first novelist was in understanding that, in the apparatus of our emotions, since the image is the only essential element, the simplification which consists of purely and simply suppressing the factual characters is a definitive improvement.”
    —Marcel Proust (1871–1922)