It has been my face. It's got older still, or course, but less, comparatively, than it would otherwise have done. It's scored with deep, dry wrinkles, the skin is cracked. But my face hasn't collapsed, as some with fine feature have done. It's kept the same contours, but its substance has been laid waste. I have a face laid waste.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the passage of time and the physical changes it brings, yet acknowledges the resilience of one's identity.
In this quote, Marguerite Duras contemplates the aging process and how it has affected her face, noting the wrinkles and cracks that represent the wear of time. She emphasizes that, despite these physical changes, her face retains its essential contours, suggesting a deeper strength and continuity of self that persists even as the external appearance deteriorates.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about embracing the natural aging process.
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?
'Oscar Wao' for example cohered in a period of terrible distress. All the novels that I wanted to write were not happening.
Sunsets are loved because they vanish. Flowers are loved because they go. The dogs of the field and the cats of the kitchen are loved because soon they must depart. These are not the sole reasons, but at the heart of morning welcomes and afternoon laughters is the promise of farewell. In the gray muzzle of an old dog we see goodbye. In the tired face of an old friend we read long journeys beyond returns.
A day without a dark cloud. Almost a happy day. There were three thousand six hundred and fifty-three days like that in his stretch. From the first clang of the rail to the last clang of the rail. Three thousand six hundred and fifty-three days. The three extra days were for leap years.
When we talk about having a life of significance and meaning, it's not about fame or money or resources. It's about people and lives and hearts. That's my biggest passion in life.
The whole play of existence is so beautiful that laughter can be the only response to it. Only laughter can be the real prayer, gratitude.
He who robs us of our dreams robs us of our life.
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