There is no man, however wise, who has not at some period in his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of which is so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory.

Marcel Proust (1871–1922) French author

“Seascape, with Frieze of Girls” [Elstir] Remembrance of Things Past, Vol. II Within a Budding Grove (1919)

trans. by Scott Moncrieff (1924)