Quotes from Marguerite Duras

Finally he hears something: he thinks it is the ebb and flow of the sea, the water crashing back into the abyss of salt.

Ese faltar de las mujeres a sí mismas ejercido por ellas mismas siempre lo he considerado un error. No se trataba de atraer el deseo. Estaba en quien lo provoca o no existía. Existía ya desde la primera mirada o no había existido nunca. Era el entendimiento inmediato de la relación sexual o no era nada. Eso también lo sabía antes del experiment.

I answered that what I wanted more than anything else in the world was to write, nothing else but that, nothing. Jealous. She's jealous. No answer, just a quick glance immediately averted, a slight shrug, unforgettable. I'll be the first to leave. There are still a few years to wait before she loses me, loses this one of her children. For the sons there's nothing to fear. But this one, she knows, one day she'll go, she'll manage to escape.

I already know a thing or two. I know it's not clothes that make women beautiful or otherwise, nor beauty care, nor expensive creams, nor the distinction or costliness of their finery. I know the problem lies elsewhere. I don't know where. I only know it isn't where women think.

Sometimes I realize that if writing isn't, all things, all contraries confounded, a quest for vanity and void, it's nothing. That if it's not, each time, all things confounded into one through some inexpressible essence, then writing is nothing but advertisement.

Écrire, c'est aussi ne pas parler. C'est se taire. C'est parler sans bruit.

Une gamme en do majeur couvrit la rumeur de la mer.

Ecrire ce n'est pas raconter des histoires. C'est le contraire de raconter des histoires. C'est raconter tout à la fois. C'est raconter une histoire et l'absence de cette histoire. C'est raconter une histoire qui en passe par son absence. Lol V. Stein est détruite par le bal de S. Thala. Lol V. Stein est bâtie par le bal de S. Thala.

Vous lui dites que vous voulez essayer, essayer plusieurs jours peut-être? Peut-être plusieurs semaines. Peut-être même pendant votre vie. Elle demande : Essayer quoi ? Vous dites : d'aimer

Les corps des hommes ont des formes avares, internées.

he's a man who must make love a lot, a man who's afraid, he must make love a lot to fight against fear.

Even so you have managed to live that love in the only way possible for you. Losing it before it happened." ? Marguerite Duras, The Malady of Death

Kisses on the body bring tears.

No le conozco a usted. Nadie puede conocerle, ponerse en su lugar, usted no tiene lugar, no sabe dónde encontrar un lugar. Por ello le quiero y usted está perdido.

And I knew it. That's the worst part: I knew it.

Los besos en el cuerpo hacen llorar. Diríase que consuelan.

Ils sont morts ensemble. Cent mètres à faire. Se coucher. Faire tenir les enfants tranquilles. Les endormir peut-être avec des chansons. Le train s'est arrêté dit-on. Voilà, c'est ça l'histoire.

Then the girl spoke to the child. She told him she'd rather it remain this way between them. That she'd rather their story not move from this place, even if the child didn't understand her; that it remain in this desire, even if that meant she put herself to death. Not a real death, mind you, but a dead death, where you don't hurt, where you're never sad, you're never punished, nothing. She said, 'It should be completely impossible.' She said, 'It should be desperate.

We're united in a fundamental shame at having to live. 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.

Nunca escrevi julgando fazê-lo nunca amei julgando amar nunca fiz nada senão esperar diante da porta fechada.

The person who writes books must always be enveloped by a separation from others.

It's as if they were happy, and as if it came from outside themselves. And I have nothing like that.

Je l'ai embrassée dans ses petites rides, sur ses paupières fanées et le long de son front, au bord de ses cheveux, là où elle ne sait pas qu'existe l'odeur d'une fleur.

Oh, one is not always alone you know. I mean so alone that one might go mad. No, there are boats and trains full of people to watch and observe and then, if one ever feels one is really going mad, there is always something to be done about it.