How to Take Your Time

advantage of not going by too fast is that the world has a chance of becoming more interesting in the process.

greatness of works of art has nothing to do with the apparent quality of their subject matter, and everything to do with the subsequent treatment of that matter.

everything is potentially a fertile subject for art and that we can make discoveries as valuable in an advertisement for soap as in Pascal’s Pensées

“one must never miss an opportunity of quoting things by others which are always more interesting than those one thinks up oneself”

He read newspapers with great care. He wouldn’t even overlook the news-in-brief section. A news-in-brief told by him turned into a whole tragic or comic novel, thanks to his imagination and his fantasy

satisfaction felt by ‘busy’ men—however idiotic their business—at ‘not having time’ to do what you are doing.”

In Search of Lost Time.