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Four Novels: The Square, Moderato Cantabile, 10:30 on a Summer Night, the Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas QUOTES

Four Novels: The Square, Moderato Cantabile, 10:30 on a Summer Night, the Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas QUOTES

1 " I want to belong to myself, to own something, not necessarily something very wonderful, but something which is mine, a place of my own, maybe only one room, but mine. Why sometimes I even find myself dreaming of a gas stove. "

― Marguerite Duras , Four Novels: The Square, Moderato Cantabile, 10:30 on a Summer Night, the Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas

2 " There is nothing people cannot get accustomed to, even to a life like mine, and so I must be careful, very careful indeed, not to become accustomed to it myself. "

― Marguerite Duras , Four Novels: The Square, Moderato Cantabile, 10:30 on a Summer Night, the Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas

3 " But I can’t start thinking of anything yet, not even the smallest thing. My life has not begun except, of course, for the fact that I am alive. There are times, in summer for example when the weather is fine, when I feel that something might have begun for me even without there being any proof of it, and then I am frightened. I become frightened of giving in to the fine weather and forgetting what I want even for a second, of losing myself in something unimportant. I am sure that if at this stage I started thinking of anything except the one big thing, I would be lost. "

― Marguerite Duras , Four Novels: The Square, Moderato Cantabile, 10:30 on a Summer Night, the Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas

4 " I understand, but I’ve come back from a long journey and now I’m resting. I never much like thinking of the future and today, when I’m resting, even less: that’s why I am so bad at explaining to you how it is I can put up with my life as it is and not change it, and what is more, not even be able to imagine changing. I’m sorry. "

― Marguerite Duras , Four Novels: The Square, Moderato Cantabile, 10:30 on a Summer Night, the Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas

5 " You can see as many towns as you like but it never gets you anywhere. And once you have stopped looking, there you are, exactly where you were before. "

― Marguerite Duras , Four Novels: The Square, Moderato Cantabile, 10:30 on a Summer Night, the Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas

6 " Traveling is a great distraction. Everyone has always traveled, the Greeks, the Phoenicians: it has always been so, all through history. "

― Marguerite Duras , Four Novels: The Square, Moderato Cantabile, 10:30 on a Summer Night, the Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas

7 " There was one day in my life, just one, when I no longer wanted to live. I was hungry, and as I had no money it was absolutely essential for me to work if I was to eat. It was as if I had forgotten that this was as true of everyone as of me. That day I felt quite unused to life and there seemed no point in going on living because I couldn’t see why things should go on for me as they did for other people. It took me a whole day to get over this feeling. Then, of course, I took my suitcase to the market and afterwards I had a meal and things went on as they had before. But with this difference, that ever since that day I find that any thought of the future—and after all thinking of a refrigerator is thinking of the future—is much more frightening than before. "

― Marguerite Duras , Four Novels: The Square, Moderato Cantabile, 10:30 on a Summer Night, the Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas