When you wept it was just over yourself and not because of the marvelous impossibility of reaching her through the difference that separates you.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the self-centered nature of grief, suggesting that our emotions often stem from our own experiences rather than truly empathizing with others.
In this quote, Marguerite Duras highlights the complexity of emotions in relationships, particularly grief. It suggests that when we mourn or weep, it often arises from our own feelings and disappointments rather than a genuine emotional connection to the other person. The 'marvelous impossibility' indicates the deep chasm that can exist between individuals, making full emotional connection difficult, if not impossible.
In practice
In a discussion about the nature of emotional pain in relationships.
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?
Religion creates community, community creates altruism and altruism turns us away from self and towards the common good... There is something about the tenor of relationships within a religious community that makes it the best tutorial in citizenship and good neighborliness.
I was guilty and irritated and full of love and pain. I wanted to kick him and I wanted to take him in my arms.
You know me better than you think, you know, and you shall know me better yet.
Suddenly, I don't know what to say. It happens often to me. I know what I want to say, I think about whether it is what I mean, but when the moment comes to speak, I can't say it. - Nana Kleinfrankenheim, Vivre Sa Vie.
I know I have a very self-destructive tendency since my mother died, I have got to be honest.
Compassion is the ability to understand how difficult it is for people to be the best of what they want to be at all times.
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