Marcel Proust said that creative people feel and experience more acutely than others and, in general, «live difficultly.» On the other hand, they have special privileges — the ability for spiritual discoveries, sincere creativity and improvement of the world. About «nervous people» and creativity — quotes of the writer.
Accept that you will be called nervous. You belong to a brilliant and unfortunate family that makes up the salt of the earth. Everything great is created for us by the nervous. It was they, and not anyone else, who laid the foundations of religions and created amazing works of art. The world will never know everything it owes them, and most importantly, how much they suffered in order to bestow it with all this. We enjoy wonderful music, beautiful paintings, everything that is elegant in the world, but we do not know that the creators paid for this with insomnia, sobs, hysterical laughter, nervous fever, asthma, epilepsy, deathly anguish …
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Neurosis is a brilliant actor. There is no such disease that he could not play in the most skillful way. Neurosis may represent swelling of the intestines, as in constipation, nausea, as in pregnancy, arrhythmia, as in heart disease, chills and fever, as in consumptives. If he is already able to deceive the doctor, then it costs him nothing to deceive the patient …
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Only through art can we leave ourselves, know how the other sees the universe.
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I tossed aside the crutches of reason, self-control that keep our wretchedness on track.
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The work of an artist is to try to see behind matter, behind experience, behind words something else — a work completely opposite to that which takes place in us every moment when, as if betraying ourselves, we find ourselves in the power of self-love, passions, reason and habits that clutter up , and in the end they completely hide our true feelings under a pile of all kinds of terminology, practical goals, which we mistakenly call life. In essence, this complex art is the only living art.
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There are very few easy successes and final failures in life.
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Very valuable discoveries can be made both in Pascal’s Thoughts and in soap advertisements.
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As embarrassing as it is to admit, I am quite sensitive to what others think of me, despite my assurances to the contrary.
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«The soil is nervous, and the flowers bloom on it are different.»
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Without nervous illness there are no great artists, moreover, there are no great scientists. And one more thing: if a doctor’s nerves have always been healthy, then he cannot be a good doctor, this is out of the question; at best, he will make a mediocre doctor in nervous diseases. A neuropathologist who doesn’t say much nonsense is a half-cured patient, just as a good critic is a poet who has stopped writing poetry, a good policeman is a thief who has stopped stealing.
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Don’t you think that the letters of many writers are above all their work?
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Talent is the offspring of a certain state of mind, in which many properties are usually lacking and in which impressionability prevails, the manifestations of which are not noticed in books, but are vividly felt in life, such as curiosity, whims, the desire to go here and there. for their own pleasure, and not for the expansion or maintenance of secular relations, and not at all for their sake.
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The general public cognizes charm, charm, cognizes the phenomena of nature through stereotyped art, slowly, but still reaching its heart, in contrast to the original artist, who first of all sweeps aside templates.
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I would be able to cure you of increased nervousness, but I will not for anything in the world. I will command her; that is enough for me. I see Bergotte’s book on your table. If your neurosis goes away, you will fall out of love with Bergotte. But what right do I have to exchange the joys that he gives you for strong nerves, which, of course, will not please you in anything? Why, these joys are in themselves a powerful tool, perhaps even the most powerful one. No, I’m not complaining about your nervous system. I only want her to obey me: I entrust you to her.