- Charles Swann: Why do I subject myself to such humiliation? I used to think Odette was ugly! I had to fall in love with her because she reminded me of a Botticelli. Now I've decided to fall out of love with her and I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't! Tonight - tonight, I finally understand that her love for me - which I rejected at first - that the feelings she had for me will never be revived. But without her I will cease to exist. It's an illness that could prove fatal. And yet I'm afraid of being cured.
- Charles Swann: May I straighten the orchids on your bodice? Like that. Tucking them in myself. What if I smelled them?
- Duchesse de Guermantes: Pity I never see you anymore. Life is a dreadful business.
- Charles Swann: Oh, dreadful.
- Duchesse de Guermantes: Some days you'd like to die. But death may be just as boring, since we don't know what it is.
- Charles Swann: What I like about you is that you're not cheerful. Let's spend an evening together.
- Charles Swann: My love for Odette goes beyond physical desire. It is so caught up in my actions, my thoughts, my sleep, my life, that without it I'd cease to exist.
- Charles Swann: My love is an illness that has reached the stage where it cannot be removed without destroying me. As surgeons say, it's inoperable.
- Duchesse de Guermantes: Will you stay a while today?
- Charles Swann: Of course.
- Duchesse de Guermantes: You left in such a rush last time. If you were 20 years older and had a weak bladder, I'd understand.
- Charles Swann: I hear your cousin Gilbert is dying.
- Duke de Guermantes: He wouldn't die now and spoil our day.
- Duke de Guermantes: Charles, you know me. I'm a modern man. I'm not bigoted. I'd be seen with a black man, if he were a friend. To me you're French, that's all. But how can you, a gourmet, a positive thinker, an informed collector, a lover of old books who sends us the best port wine - how can you jeopardize your social position? Because you know that if you married her, we couldn't receive her.
- Charles Swann: She looks like you, don't you think? The high cheekbones, the shape of the neck, the heavy eyelids. The sad eyes.
- Odette de Crecy: Who is she?
- Charles Swann: Zephora, Jethro's daughter. It's by Botticelli. He did it as a fresco in the 15th Century on the wall of the Sistine Chapel.
- Odette de Crecy: I'm not a museum piece.
- Chloe: You should have seen the girl quiver. She'd tell the other, "This is ecstasy." She'd get so excited she couldn't keep from biting her.
- Biche: I stuck my nose in one painting to see how it was done. It was impossible to say if it was done with glue, with bronze, with paint, with rubies, with sunlight, or with pee-pee or with caca. It's all there, and it smells good. It takes your breath away, it tickles you, and it's shit! Really, I swear!
- Dr. Cottard: You won't be ill. And if you are, I'll cure you.
- Madame Verdurin: You promise?
- Dr. Cottard: Promis-cuity.
- Charles Swann: You've put substance in my life - and grace in my heart. Thanks to you, the whole world is bathed in a mysterious light. If you only knew how dry my life was before you.
- Baron de Charlus: The greatest of follies is to despise feelings you don't share! I love darkness. You fear it. Good-bye. My affection for you is dead and beyond resuscitation.
- Forcheville: The fact is that the Egyptians were extraordinary. While we Europeans were still living in caves, they'd already invented the Immaculate Conception.
- Charles Swann: To think that I wasted years of my life - that I wanted to die - that the love of my life - was a woman I didn't like - who wasn't my type.
- Baron de Charlus: Life is like an artist's studio, full of half-finished sketches. We sacrifice everything to fantasies that vanish, one after another. We betray our ambitions, our dreams.
- Charles Swann: I loved life. I loved the arts. Now I treasure all those old feelings. They're like a collection. I open up my own heart as if it were a display cabinet.