Marcel Proust

A strange thing, indeed, that those words, "two or three times," nothing more than a few words, words uttered in the air, at a distance, could so lacerate a man's heart, as if they had actually pierced it, could sicken a man, like a poison that he had drunk.

For often we find a day, in one, that has strayed from another season, and makes us live in that other, summons at once into our presence and makes us long for its peculiar pleasures, and interrupts the dreams that we were in process of weaving, by inserting, out of its turn, too early or too late, this leaf, torn from another chapter, in the interpolated calendar of Happiness.

For many years have now elapsed since the Combray days, when, coming in from the longest and latest walks, I would still be in time to see the reflection of the sunset glowing in the panes of my bedroom window.

and of the insolent indifference of a clock that chattered on at the top of its voice as though I were not there;

that one must return

imagine that they can taste in reality what has charmed their fancy.

apt to grow confused

shut in from the outer world

Custom! that skilful but unhurrying manager

for memory was now set in motion