"If i were to tell someone about my life today, I could do it in a way that would make them think me a brave, happy, independent woman...
All my life, I thought love as some kind of voluntary enslavement,Well, that's a lie: freedom only exits when love is present.The person who gives himself or herself wholly,the person who feels freest, is the person who loves most wholeheartedly.
And the person who loves wholeheartedly feels free.
....
But what am i saying? In love, no one can harm anyone else;we are each of us responsible for our own feelings and cannot blame someone else for what we feel.
It hurt when I lost each of the various men i fell in love with.Now though,I am convinced that no one loses anyone, because no one owns anyone.
That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it."
"He should know that the great aim of every human being is to understand the meaning of total love.Love is not to be found in someone else, but in ourselves;we simply awaken it.But in order to do that, we need the other person.The universe only makes sense when we have someone to share our feelings with"
"Everyone knows how to love, because we are all born with that gift.Some people have a natural talent for it, but the majority of is have to re-learn, to remember how to love, and everyone, without exception, needs to burn on the bonfire of past emotions, to relive certain joys and friefs, certain ups and downs, until they can see the connecting thread that exists behind each new encounter; because there is a connecting thread."
" 'You experienced pain yesterday and you discovered that it led to pleasure.You experienced it today and found peace.That's why I'm telling you:don't get used to it, because it's very easy to become habituated;its a very powerful drug.It's in our daily lives,in our hidden suffering,in the sacrifices we make,blaming love for the destruction of our dreams.Pain is frightening when it shows its real face,but it's seductive when it comes disguised as sacrifice or self-denial.Or cowardice.However much we may reject it,we human beings always find a way of being with pain,of flirting with it and making it part of our lives.'
'I don't believe that.No one wants to suffer.'
'If you think you can live without suffering,thats a great step forward,but don't imagine that other people will understand you.True,no one wants to suffer, and yet nearly everyone seeks out pain and sacrifice, and then they feel justified,pure,deserving of the respect of their children,husbands,neighbours,God.....'
'Does a soldier go to war in order to kill the enemy?No,he goes in order to die for his country.Does a wife want to show her husband how happy she is?No,she wants him to see how devoted she is,how she suffers in order to make him happy.Does the husband go to work thinkin he will find personal fulfillment there?No, he is giving his sweat and tears for the good of the family.And so it goes on: sons give up their dreams to please their parents, parents give up their loves in order to please their children; pain and suffering are used to justify the one thing that should bring only joy: love'
"Certain things cannot be shared.Nor can we be afraid of the oceans into which we plunge of our own free will;fear cramps everyone's style.Man goes through hell in order to understand this.Love one another, but let's not try to possess one another."
"...It's odd how, when you live in a city, you always postpone getting to know it and usually end up never knowing it at all.
She thought she would feel happy because she was going home,but she wasn't.She thought she would feel sad because she was leaving a city that had treated her so well, but she didn't.The only thing she could do now was to shed a few tears, feeling rather afraid of herself, an intelligent young woman, who had everything going for her, but who tended to make the wrong decisions."
"That's how it always happened in films: at the last moment, when the woman is just about to board the plane, the man races up to her, puts his arms around her and kisses her, and brings her back to his world, beneath the smiling indulgent gaze of the flight staff.The words 'The End' appear on the screen, and the audience knows that, from then on, they will live happily ever after.
'Films never tell you what happens next,'she thought, trying to console herself.Marriage, cooking, children, ever more infrequent sex, the discover of the first note from his mistress,the decision to confront him,his promise that it will never happen again, the second note from another mistress, another confrontation and this time a threat to leave him, this time the man reacts less vehemently and merely tells her that he loves her.The third note from a third mistress, and the decision to say nothing, to pretend that she knows nothing, because he might tell her that he doesn't love her any more and that she's free to leave.
No,films never show that.They finish before the real world begins.It's best not to think too much about it."
