Words don't change their shape, they change their meaning, their function...They don't have a meaning of their own any more, they refer to other words that you don't know, that you've never read or heard...you've never seen their shape, but you feel...you suspect...they correspond to...an empty space inside you...or in the universe.
Interpretation
Words evolve in their meaning and significance, often representing unknown concepts that resonate with our inner selves.
This quote by Marguerite Duras suggests that words are not static; rather, their meanings shift and adapt based on context and personal experience. The essence of language lies not in the words themselves but in what they signify to each individual, revealing deeper truths and voids within both ourselves and the wider universe.
In practice
In a speech about the power of language in shaping identity, you might reference this quote.
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 I’m 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 I’ll 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?
People can have the Model T in any color – so long as it’s black.
The book, 'Citizen,' begins with daily encounters, little moments, places where language reveals how racism determines how we interact.
What an immense mass of evil must result...from allowing men to assume the right of anticipating what may happen.
The quality of rhetoric emanating from the psychedelic community must improve radically. If it does not, we will forfeit the reclamation of our birthright and all opportunity for exploring the psychedelic dimension will be closed off.
Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.
Perhaps one day tired of circling the world I'll return to Argentina and settle in the Andean lakes if not indefinitely then at least for a pause while I shift from one understanding of the world to another.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.