She had lived her early years as though she were waiting for something she might, but never did, become.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the idea of unfulfilled potential and the passage of time.
In this quote, Marguerite Duras suggests that the individual spent her formative years in a state of anticipation for a future self that she never realized. It invites contemplation on the nature of existence and the personal aspirations we hold, implying that life can sometimes be a waiting game for dreams that may never materialize, leading to a sense of lost time and missed opportunities.
In practice
In a motivational speech about pursuing dreams, this quote can serve as a cautionary tale.
Alcohol doesn't console, it doesn't fill up anyone's psychological gaps, all it replaces is the lack of God. It doesn't comfort man. On the contrary, it encourages him in his folly, it transports him to the supreme regions where he is master of his own destiny.
What she said was always strange. It had happened long ago. It seemed insignificant. And yet it was something you remembered forever. The words as well as the story. The voice as much as the words.
I'm still there, watching those possessed children, as far away from the mystery now as I was then. I've never written, though I thought I wrote, never loved, though I thought I loved, never done anything but wait outside the closed door.
Perhaps someone will have seen mine, the one I’m waiting for, just as I saw him, in a ditch when his hands were making their last appeal and his eyes no longer could see. Someone who will never know what that man was to me; someone whose name I’ll never know.
Stormy skies, says Ernesto. He grieved for them. Summer rain. Childhood.
A prolonged silence ensues. The reason for the silence is our growing interest one for the other. No one is aware of it, no one yet; no one? am I quite sure?
Anything that is western origin, first you verify it, then accept it. Anything that is Indian origin, first accept it, then verify it if necessary.
I've only ever written about one thing in my life, which is the fact that we, as human beings, have a responsibility to one another and that it's important that we empathize with others, that we organize society so that we all become happier and we all get the life we really want.
Let us fight the battle-retreat from the things that attract us and rouse ourselves to meet the things that actually attack us.
If you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics - a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage - surely that proves that you are in the right?
I feel closer ties and more intimate bonds with certain characters in books, with certain images I’ve seen in engravings, than with many supposedly real people with the metaphysical absurdity known as ‘flesh and blood’. In fact, ‘flesh and blood’ describes them very well: they resemble cuts of meat laid out on the butcher’s marble slab, dead creatures bleeding as though still alive.
A thing long expected takes the form of the unexpected when at last it comes.
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