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Marguerite Duras Quotes

Writer

Marguerite Duras was a renowned French writer born on April 4, 1914, and passed away on March 3, 1996. Her works are known for their unique narrative style and profound social insight, with notable titles including 'The Lover' and 'The River'.

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All Men Writing Love Children Knows Alcoholism Desire Frigidity Way People

Famous Marguerite Duras Quotes

“I often think of the image only I can see now, and of which I’ve never spoken. It’s always there, in the same silence, amazing. It’s the only image of myself I like, the only one in which I recognize myself, in which I delight”

Thinking I Can Silence Delight

Author:Marguerite Duras

“I am dead. I have no desire for you. My body no longer wants the one who doesn’t love.”

Want Body Desire

Author:Marguerite Duras

“I seldom read on beaches or in gardens. You can't read by two lights at once, the light of day and the light of the book. You should read by electric light, the room in shadow, and only the page lit up.”

Should Two Book Light Rooms Pages Shadow Garden Beach Electric Lit Electric Light

Author:Marguerite Duras

“A house means a family house, a place specially meant for putting children and men in so as to restrict their waywardness and distract them from the longing for adventure and escape they've had since time began.”

Men Mean Children Home Time House Adventure Longing

Book:Practicalities

Source: Practicalities

“Alcohol doesn't console, it doesn't fill up anyone's psychological gaps, all it replaces is the lack of God.”

Alcohol Psychological Folly Regions Gaps Alcoholism Console Frigidity

Book:Practicalities

Source: Practicalities

“To love one child and to love all children, whether living or dead -somewhere these two loves come together. To love a no-good but humble punk and to love an honest man who believes himself to be an honest man -somewhere these, too, come together.”

Men Love Believe Children Two Together Honest Humble Punk Honest Man Two Loves

Author:Marguerite Duras

“It was the men I deceived the most that I loved the most.”

Men Love He Man Deceived

Book:Practicalities

Source: Practicalities

“It's afterwards you realize that the feeling of happiness you had with a man didn't necessarily prove that you loved him.”

Men Love Feelings Realizing Prove

Book:Practicalities

Source: Practicalities

“In love there are no vacations. No such thing. Love has to be lived fully with its boredom and all that.”

Blessing Boredom Vacation

Author:Marguerite Duras

“For that's what a woman, a mother wants - to teach her children to take an interest in life. She knows it's safer for them to be interested in other people's happiness than to believe in their own.”

People Knows Want Believe Children Mother Interest Teach Motherhood Interest In Life

Book:Practicalities

Source: Practicalities

“Frigidity is desire imagined by a woman who doesnt desire the man offering himself to her. Its the desire of a woman for a man who hasnt yet come to her, whom she doesnt yet know. Shes faithful to this stranger even before she belongs to him. Frigidity is the non-desire for whatever is not him.”

Knows Men Desire He Man Stranger Faithful Offering Frigidity

Book:Practicalities

Source: Practicalities

“She represents the un-vowed aspiration of the male human being, his potential infidelity - and infidelity of a very special kind, which would lead him to the opposite of his wife, to the woman of wax whom he could model at will, make and unmake in any way he wished, even unto death.”

Way Humans Kind Actors Human Beings Acting Wife Special Models Opposites Males Aspiration Infidelity

Author:Marguerite Duras

“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.”

Men Destiny Masters Comfort Alcohol Contrary Supreme Psychological Folly Regions Gaps Alcoholism Transport Console Alcohol And Life Funny Sarcastic Frigidity

Book:Practicalities

Source: Practicalities

“The best way to fill time is to waste it.”

Way Time Work Waste Best Way Time Management

Book:Practicalities

Source: Practicalities

“You have to be very fond of men. Very, very fond. You have to be very fond of them to love them. Otherwise they're simply unbearable.”

Men Love Philosophical Affection Unbearable

Book:Practicalities

Source: Practicalities

“Alcohol is barren. The words a man speaks in the night of drunkenness fade like the darkness itself at the coming of day.”

Men Night Speak Darkness Alcohol Fades Alcoholism Drunkenness Barren Frigidity

Book:Practicalities

Source: Practicalities

“I believe that always, or almost always, in all childhoods and in all the lives that follow them, the mother represents madness. Our mothers always remain the strangest, craziest people we've ever met.”

People Believe Mother I Believe Childhood Mets Madness Craziest Frigidity

Book:Practicalities

Source: Practicalities

“Men like women who write. Even though they don't say so. A writer is a foreign country.”

Men Writing Country Foreign Countries

Book:Practicalities

Source: Practicalities

“No other human being, no woman, no poem or music, book or painting can replace alcohol in its power to give man the illusion of real creation.”

Men Giving Humans Book Real Human Beings Creation Painting Illusion Alcohol Alcoholism

Book:Practicalities

Source: Practicalities

“Journalism without a moral position is impossible. Every journalist is a moralist. It's absolutely unavoidable.”

Moral Impossible Position Journalism Journalist Moralist

Book:Outside

Source: Outside

“When a woman drinks it's as if an animal were drinking, or a child. Alcoholism is scandalous in a woman, and a female alcoholic is rare, a serious matter. It's a slur on the divine in our nature.”

Ifs Children Matter Animal Divine Serious Drink Female Drinking Alcohol Alcoholism Alcoholics Scandalous Slurs Alcoholism Funny Recovering Alcoholics

Book:Practicalities

Source: Practicalities

“I see journalists as the manual workers, the laborers of the word. Journalism can only be literature when it is passionate.”

Literature Workers Passionate Journalism Journalist Manuals Laborers Frigidity

Author:Marguerite Duras

“It's only women who are not really quite women at all, frivolous women who have no idea, who neglect repairs.”

Ideas Women No Idea Neglect Frivolous

Book:Practicalities

Source: Practicalities

“The house a woman creates is a Utopia. She can't help it - can't help trying to interest her nearest and dearest not in happiness itself but in the search for it.”

Trying Helping Home Happiness House Interest Utopia

Book:Practicalities

Source: Practicalities

“I know all one can know when one knows nothing.”

Knows

Book:La douleur

Source: La douleur

“Journalism without a moral position is impossible. Every journalist is a moralist. It's absolutely unavoidable. A journalist is someone who looks at the world and the way it works, someone who takes a close look at things every day and reports what she sees, someone who represents the world, the event, for others. She cannot do her work without judging what she sees.”

World Way Looks Moral Impossible Events Position Judging Journalism Journalist Reports Moralist

Book:Outside

Source: Outside

“Oh, how good it is to be with someone, sometimes.”

Sometimes

Author:Marguerite Duras

“Madness is like intelligence, you know. You can't explain it. Just like intelligence. It comes on you, it fills you, and then you understand it. But when it goes away you can't understand it at all any longer.”

Knows Madness

Book:Hiroshima Mon Amour

Source: Hiroshima Mon Amour

“I suddenly remember something I've been told about fear. That amid a hail of machine gun fire you notice the existence of your skin.”

Remember Fear Existence Fire Gun Skins Machines Hail Machine Guns Remember Something

Book:La douleur

Source: La douleur

“War is a generality, so are the inevitabilities of war, including death.”

War Including Inevitability Generalities

Book:La douleur

Source: La douleur

“Before they're plumbers or writers or taxi drivers or unemployed or journalists, before everything else, men are men. Whether heterosexual or homosexual. The only difference is that some of them remind you of it as soon as you meet them, and others wait for a little while.”

Men Littles Waiting Differences Journalist Drivers Homosexual Unemployed Taxi Plumber

Author:Marguerite Duras

“Heterosexuality is dangerous. It tempts you to aim at a perfect duality of desire.”

Desire Perfect Dangerous Aim Duality Heterosexuality Heterosexuality Is

Book:Practicalities

Source: Practicalities

About the Author

Born: April 4, 1914
Died: March 3, 1996
Known for: Writer
Quotes: 132

Books & Sources

PracticalitiesRelated source material

The LoverRelated source material

WritingRelated source material

The Ravishing of Lol SteinRelated source material

La douleurRelated source material

Summer rainRelated source material

Hiroshima Mon AmourRelated source material

OutsideRelated source material

The Malady of DeathRelated source material

L'AmantRelated source material

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