“Nine tenths of the ills from which intelligent people suffer spring from their intellect. They need at least a doctor who understands the disease. How can you expect Cottard to be able to treat you? He has made allowances for the difficulty of digesting sauces, for gastric trouble, but he has made no allowance for the effect of reading Shakespeare.”

French novelist, literary critic, and essayist

Marcel Proust was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist. He is best known for À la recherche du temps perdu, the seven-volume novel published between 1913 and 1927. That work runs to around 1.25 million words and secured his place among the most influential writers of the twentieth century, according to critics and fellow authors. His reputation rests above all on this long, closely observed novel and on his wider influence on modern literature.