Every day of our lives does not some friend or other ask us to make his apologies, without fail, to some woman to whom he has been prevented from writing
 Marcel Proust, Swann's Way (1913). copy citation

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Author Marcel Proust
Source Swann's Way
Topic apology writing
Date 1913
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7178/7178-h/7178-h.htm

Context

“In doing this I had no thought of causing my uncle any unpleasantness. How could I have thought such a thing, since I did not wish it? And I could not suppose that my parents would see any harm in a visit in which I myself saw none. Every day of our lives does not some friend or other ask us to make his apologies, without fail, to some woman to whom he has been prevented from writing; and do not we forget to do so, feeling that this woman cannot attach much importance to a silence which has none for ourselves? I imagined, like everyone else, that the brains of other people were lifeless and submissive receptacles with no power of specific reaction to any stimulus which might be applied to them;” source