In this paper, I argue that Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust can help us understand the implications of the theory of top-down perception and can contribute to contemporary debates in the philosophy of perception by leading us back to an appreciation of an Aristotelian view of the relationship between perceiving and valuing. The character of Charles Swann—whose mind, in the grip of love, modifies the world to suit its own expectations and hopes—serves as a particularly extreme example of the creative role of memory and imagination, which, in Proust’s view, help to construct reality in accordance with opinion. In Aristotle’s De Anima, we find a similar account of the role of imagination and opinion, an account that can provide a framework for understanding Proust’s more phenomenological account of perception.