Swann's Way

This also reminds me a bit of what Dostoevsky writes in the brothers Karamazov about it being easier to love humanity from afar

— hailo

This feels like such a pivot of character

— hailo

So good & reminds me of the section with the cookie when he gets into the hedonistic slider

— hailo

And once the novelist has brought us to that state, in which, as in all purely mental states, every emotion is multiplied ten-fold, into which his book comes to disturb us as might a dream, but a dream more lucid, and of a more lasting impression than those which come to us in sleep; why, then, for the space of an hour he sets free within us all the joys and sorrows in the world, a few of which, only, we should have to spend years of our actual life in getting to know, and the keenest, the most intense of which would never have been revealed to us because the slow course of their development stops our perception of them. It is the same in life; the heart changes, and that is our worst misfortune; but we learn of it only from reading or by imagination; for in reality its alteration, like that of certain natural phenomena, is so gradual that, even if we are able to distinguish, successively, each of its different states, we are still spared the actual sensation of change.

— Jason

"Suddenly my father would stop us and ask my mother: "Where are we?" Exhausted from walking but proud of him, she would admit tenderly that she had absolutely no idea. He would shrug his shoulders and laugh... My mother would say to him admiringly: 'You are astonishing!" And from that moment on, I would not have to take another step... Habit had taken me in its arms, and it carried me all the way to my bed like a little child." This section is so beautiful, also connects to the idea of system 1 vs system 2 in neuroscience. What is automatic vs what requires deep thought.

— hailo