213 Quotes by Marguerite Duras

A book consists of two layers: on top, the readable layer ... and underneath, a layer that was inaccessible. You only sense its existence in a moment of distraction from the literal reading, the way you see childhood through a child. It would take forever to tell what you see, and it would be pointless.

She is naked beneath her dark hair; naked, naked, dark hair.

Get rid of things or you’ll spend your whole life tidying up.

I have never waited for anything the way I’ve waited for today, when nothing will happen.

Some birds are shrieking at the tops of their voices, crazy birds.

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

Our mothers always remain the strangest, craziest people we’ve ever met.

You’re always more unreal to yourself than other people are.

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.