Quotes from Marguerite Duras

Yes, the heat lacerated the heart. And alone she resisted it, entire, virgin, the envy of the sea.

Il faut éviter de penser à ces difficultés que présente le monde. Sans ça, il deviendrait tout à fait irrespirable.

What she tells the Japanese is this lost opportunity which has made her what she is. The story she tells of this lost opportunity literally transports her outside herself and carries her toward this new man. To give oneself, body and soul, that's it.

Ma vie est un film doublé, mal monté, mal interprété, mal ajusté, une erreur en somme.

La historia está ahí, inevitable ya. La de un amor cegador. Siempre por venir, jamás olvidado.

He says, You only came because I'm rich. I say that's how I desire him, with his money, that when I first saw him he was already in his car, in his money, so I can't say what I'd have done if he'd been different.

He calls me a whore, a slut, he says I'm his only love, and that's what he ought to say, and what you do say when you just let things says themselves, when you let the body alone, to seek and find and take what it likes, and then everything is right, and nothing's wasted, the waste is covered over and all is swept away in the torrent, in the force of desire.

They look at each other endlessly, endlessly

Ce que je veux paraître je le parais, belle aussi si c'est ce que l'on veut que je sois, belle, ou jolie, jolie par exemple pour la famille, pour la famille, pas plus, tout ce que l'on veut de moi je peux le devenir »

L'écrit ça arrive comme le vent, c'est nu, c'est de l'encre, c'est l'écrit, et ça passe comme rien d'autre ne passe dans la vie, rien de plus, sauf elle, la vie. »

There is something suicidal in a writer's solitude. One is alone even in one's own solitude. Always inconceivable. Always dangerous. Yes. The price one pays for having dared go out and scream.

Je pense souvent à cette image que je suis seule à voir encore et dont je n'ai jamais parlé. Elle est toujours là dans le même silence,émerveillante. C'est entre toutes celle qui me plaît de moi-même, celle où je me reconnais, où je m'enchante.

People were used to those slow human speeds on both land and sea, to those delays, those waitings on the wind or fair weather, to those expectations of shipwreck, sun, and death. The liners the little white girl knew were among the last mailboats in the world. It was while she was young that the first airlines were started, which were gradually to deprive mankind of journeys across the sea. (The Lover)

Women should not let lovers read the books they write.

She is naked beneath her dark hair; naked, naked, dark hair.

You're always more unreal to yourself than other people are.

La faim n'empêche pas les enfants de jouer.

It's here we are at the heart of our common fate, the fact that all three of us are our mother's children, the children of a candid creature murdered by society. We're on the side of the society which has reduced her to despair. Because of what's been done to our mother, so amiable, so trusting, we hate life, we hate ourselves.

Il se taisait toujours sur les images qu'il voyait derrière ses yeux fermés. On aurait dit qu'il aimait cette douleur, qu'il l'aimait comme il m'avait aimée, très fort, jusqu'à mourir peut-être, et que maintenant il la préférait à moi. »

We tell each other things that have no relation to the afternoon's events or the coming night but that relate to God, to his absence that is so present, like the breasts of the young girl, so young before the immensity of what is to come.

Ce manquement des femmes à elles-mêmes par elles-mêmes opéré m'apparaissait toujours comme une erreur.

Écrire toute sa vie, ça apprend à écrire. Ça ne sauve de rien.

When you're being looked at you can't look. To look is to feel curious, to be interested, to lower yourself. No one you look at is worth it.

Katkad kažemo ubi?u se, a potom nastavimo da ?itamo knjigu.