...as long as nothing happens between them, the memory is cursed with what hasn't happened.
Interpretation
Unfulfilled connections can haunt our memories and hearts.
This quote reflects the idea that the absence of real experiences or actions in a relationship can lead to regret and a sense of longing. Marguerite Duras suggests that when two people have potential yet remain at a distance, it creates a curse of memories filled with 'what ifs' rather than fulfilling moments.
In practice
During a discussion on unfulfilled relationships, this quote can serve as a poignant reminder of the emotional weights we carry.
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 Iβm 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 Iβll 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?
Child abuse damages a person for life and that damage is in no way diminished by the ignorance of the perpetrator. It is only with the uncovering of the complete truth as it affects all those involved that a genuinely viable solution can be found to the dangers of child abuse.
Life is a big collaboration - and when you're tackling something that is painful and troubling and is causing you such desperate grief that you think life's not worth living - you need to reach out. To people who will reach back.
Flattery is telling the other person precisely what he thinks about himself.
A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.
The very ingredients that nurture love - mutuality, reciprocity, protection, worry, responsibility for the other - are sometimes the very ingredients that stifle desire.
It is he who has broken the bond of marriage - not I. I only break its bondage.
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