Only anticipation is satisfying

In the London Review of Books, Adam Phillips reviews Benjamin Taylor’s book, Proust: The Search. Phillips says of Proust:

…In Search of Lost Time, about someone wanting to write a book he doesn’t write, is itself about the ways our objects of desire sustain us by failing to satisfy us.

Phillips summarizes Proust as thinking that “…reality is unbearably disappointing. Only anticipation is satisfying.”

Phillips says:

The desire to make your dreams come true is a fatal misunderstanding. You have to find something you really want to do and find ways of not doing it.