I have built, deep in my heart, a chapel filled with you.

[They] can’t….understand you: you’re such an exceptional person. That’s what I liked about you from the start; I felt that you weren’t like everybody else.

I loved her [Gilberte]; I was sorry not to have had the time and the inspiration to insult her, to hurt her, to force her to keep some memory of me. I thought her so beautiful that I should have liked to be able to retrace my steps so as to shake my fist at her and shout, "I think you're hideous, grotesque; how I loathe you!"_

There can be no piece of mind in love, since the advantage one has secured is never anything but a fresh starting-point for future desires.

Like everybody who is not in love, he thought one chose the person to be loved after endless deliberations and on the basis of particular qualities or advantages.

Love is a striking example of how little reality means to us.