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Quote by Marcel Proust

“There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we believe we left without having lived them, those we spent with a favorite book.”

Quote by Marcel Proust

Work

Days of Reading

This book is a compilation of thoughtful essays that delve into the personal experiences and reflections on the act of reading. It covers a range of topics from the pleasure of reading to the impact of literature on individuals and society. more

Author

Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust

Marcel Proust was a French novelist renowned for his magnum opus, 'In Search of Lost Time'. This novel is considered a classic of 20th-century literature, known for its intricate psychological portrayals and profound exploration of memory. more

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“The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave anything out. I have read like a man on fire my whole life because the genius of English teachers touched me with the dazzling beauty of language. Because of them I rode with Don Quixote and danced with Anna Karenina at a ball in St. Petersburg and lassoed a steer in "Lonesome Dove" and had nightmares about slavery in "Beloved" and walked the streets of Dublin in "Ulysses" and made up a hundred stories in the Arabian nights and saw my mother killed by a baseball in "A Prayer for Owen Meany." I've been in ten thousand cities and have introduced myself to a hundred thousand strangers in my exuberant reading career, all because I listened to my fabulous English teachers and soaked up every single thing those magnificent men and women had to give. I cherish and praise them and thank them for finding me when I was a boy and presenting me with the precious gift of the English language.”

“I write only... To rid myself of what has clung to my heart. I don’t want it, even if it holds my salvation. I seek innocence from every pain it left behind, And to rise above their abandonment when I needed them most. I long to erase them from my memory, as if they never were, To empty this sorrow that has settled in my chest, Then walk away… without turning back. But deep within me, What I fear most of all... Is that I may never stop writing.”

“Readers may be divided into four classes: I. Sponges, who absorb all they read, and return it nearly in the same state, only a little dirtied. II. Sand-glasses, who retain nothing, and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time. III. Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read. IV. Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.”