Marcel Proust Quotes

Ask others about themselves, at the same time, be on guard not to talk too much about yourself.

There is, I think, great difficulty in writing of one's self: it is almost impossible to present subjects where the chief actor must be conspicuous and not seem to be, or really be, egotistical.

I guess I'm just not that comfortable talking about myself.

In person, I am a person who doesn't talk about myself.

I don't like talking about myself. I find it a lot easier talking about other people.

When we are conscious of the least comparative merit in ourselves, we should take as much care to conceal the value we set upon it, as if it were a real defect; to be elated or vain upon it is showing your money before people in want.

Anna Petrovna: Never talk to women about your own good qualities. Let them find out for themselves.

Whatever you describe to another person is also a revelation of who you are and who you think you are. You can not describe anything without betraying your point of view, your aspirations, your fears, your hopes. Everything.

I'm really good at judging and observing other people, but not myself.

Most people are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others, frightfully objective sometimes--but the task is precisely to be objective toward oneself and subjective toward all others.

A man . . . must have a very good opinion of himself when he asks people to leave their own fireside, and encounter such a day as this, for the sake of coming to see him. He must think himself a most agreeable fellow.

A gentleman does not appear to know more or to be more than those with whom he is thrown into company.

Our very business is to teach the great lesson of self-denial and humility to our people, and how unfit is it then that we should be proud ourselves!

Only her tight, tight eyes were left. They were always left...They were everything. Everything was there, in them...Thrown, in this way, into the binding conviction that only a miracle could relieve her, she would never know her beauty. She would see only what there was to see: the eyes of other people.

I may not be better than other people, but at least I'm different.

It is a hard and nice subject for a man to speak of himself: it grates his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader's ear to hear anything of praise from him.

You know, mind allows us to portray in different sensory modalities, visual, auditory, olfactory, you name it, what we are like and what the world is like. But this very, very important quality of subjectivity, this quality that allows us to take a distant view and say, "I am here, I exist, I have a life and there are things around me that refer to me." That me-ness, M-E-hyphen, that is what really constitutes consciousness.

You know what the hardest thing is? What nobody wants to understand -- is me. People want their memories of me to be my memories of me. But you know what? They're not.

It is as commendable to think well of oneself when alone, as it is ridiculous to speak well of oneself among others.

I don't think as highly of myself as some people make me out to be. I am so far from arrogant, because I have been through enough to know that everything can go away in a moment. You know, I really don't understand why anyone would want to put me on a pedestal.

I don't really see myself that way, as some typical sexy young ingénue. I've never been that way. And, for a while, there was a disconnect between who I am and how I present myself on a public platform. That was because I didn't necessarily feel comfortable sharing that much of myself with other people who I didn't know.

Don't forget where you came from and treat people a certain way.

Most people enjoy the sight of their own handwriting as they enjoy the smell of their own farts.

I don't really check out other people's butts.

Sartre said that hell is other people, I believe that most of them are