“Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life.”

“May you always see a blue sky overhead, my young friend; and then, even when the time comes, as it has come for me now, when the woods are black, when night is fast falling, you will be able to console yourself, as I do, by looking up at the sky.”

“Now are the woods all black,But still the sky is blue.”

“But,instead of what our imagination makes us suppose and which we worthless try to discover,life gives us something that we could hardly imagine.”

“You know Balbec so well - do you have friends in the area?'I have friends wherever there are companies of trees, wounded but not vanquished, which huddle together with touching obstinacy to implore an inclement and pitiless sky.'That is not what I meant,' interrupted my father, as obstinate as the trees and as pitiless as the sky.”

“...my house contains every useless thing in the world. it lacks only the one essential, a piece of sky like this one...”

“I have friends wherever there are companies of trees, wounded but not vanquished, which huddle together with touching obstinancy to implore an inclement and pitiless sky.”