"But then I wondered: I used to value Albertine more than myself; I no longer value her now because for a period of time I have ceased to see her. But my desire not to be separated from myself by death, to revive after death, was a desire unlike the desire never to be separated from Albertine, it continued to last. Was that because I believed I was more precious than she, because when I loved her, I loved myself more? No, it was because in ceasing to see her, I had ceased to love her, and because I had not ceased to love myself since my daily relationship with myself had not been interrupted as had that with Albertine. But what if the relationship with my body, and with myself, had also been interrupted? Surely the result would be the same. Our love of life is no more than an old affair that we do not know how to discontinue. Its strength lies in its permanence. But death, which interrupts it, will cure us of our desire for immortality." - Proust, The Fugitive, tr. Peter Collier