Notes

--- Search of the lost time

The cheek of childhood is plump and fresh.

awakened by a sudden spasm

the rest of the humanity seemed very remote in comparison with the company of this woman

The immobility of the things that surround us is forced upon them by our conviction that they are themselves and not anything else, by the immolilty of our conception of them.
(I've seen a similar sentence from solitaire mystery. Guess those guys are very good at playing in this type of area.)

my body, still too heavy with sleep to move

habit had changed the colour of the curtains, silenced the clock, brought an expression of pity to the cruel, slanting face of the glass, disguised or even completely dispelled the scent of vetiver and appreciably reduced the apparent loftiness of the ceiling.

Habit! that skiful but slwo-moving arranger who begins by letting our minds suffer for weeks on end in temporary quarters, but whom our minds are none the less only too happy to discover at last, for without it, reduced to their own devices, they would be powerless to make any room seem habitable.

It's a funny thing, now; I very often think of my poor wife, but I cannot think of her for long at a time.
Often, but a little at a time, like poor old Swann.

Even in the most insignificant details of our daily life, none f us can be said to consititute a material whole, which is identical for everyone, and need only be turned up like agape in an account-book or the record of a will; our social personality is a creation of the thoughts of other people.

----- 李鸿章传
天下惟庸人无咎无誉


---- A Global History
These drastic environmental changes compelled all animals to adapt and readapt themselves continually to new conditions. Success in this crucial matter depended not on brute rather on the continuous growth of intellience and the use of that intellience to work out satisfactory adaptations.

Humans have been, first and foremos, generalists. They never adapted exclusively to one type of environment. Rather humans relied on their brains, not their bodies, to adapt to any environment

a guy who's always interested in the condition of the world and changing it either has no problems of his own or refuses to face them



Richmond Thackeray
Ambrose Bierce:
Roald Dahl