MARCEL PROUST

Le Côté de Guermantes, Part 1

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It is in sickness that we are compelled to recognize that we do not live alone but are chained to a being from a different realm, from whom we are worlds apart, who has no knowledge

of us and by whom it is impossible to make ourselves understood: our body. 

To ask pity of our body is like discoursing in front of an octopus, for which our words can have no more meaning than the sound of the tides, and with which we should be appalled to find ourselves condemned to live.