Sleep and Sleeplessness

Insomnia is almost an oasis in which those who have to think or suffer darkly take refuge.
– Colette

Si les insomnies d'un musicien lui font créer de belles oeuvres, ce sont de belles insomnies. If the insomnia of a musician allows him to create beautiful pieces, it is a beautiful insomnia.
– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Marcel Proust wrote most of his À la recherche du temps perdu "In Search of Lost Time" while staying awake in the night due to a chronic illness. In Sodome et Gomorrhe, he suggests that Un peu d'insomnie n'est pas inutile pour apprécier le sommeil, projeter quelque lumière dans cette nuit. A little insomnia is useful for appreciating sleep, for projecting some light into this night.

Vladmir Nabokov believed that insomnia was a positive influence on his work. He once remarked that sleep is the most moronic fraternity in the world, with the heaviest dues and the crudest rituals.

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