“All that remains of that minute is time in all its purity, bone-white time.”

“In a certain state of mind, all trace of feeling is banished. Whenever I remain silent in a certain way, I don't love you, have you noticed that?”

“I want to write. I've already told my mother: That's what I want to do-write. No answer the first time. Then she asks, Write what? I say, Books, novels. [...] She's against it, it's not worthy, it's not real work, it's nonsense. Later she said, A childish idea.”

“Life is only lived full-time by women with children.”

“Sometimes,’ she said, ‘I think I must have invented him.’I know all I want to about your child,’ Chauvin said harshly.Anne Desbaresdes moaned again, louder than before. Again she put her hand on the table. His eyes followed her movement and finally, painfully, he understood and lifted his own leaden hand and placed it on hers. Their hands were so cold they were touching only in intention, an illusion, in order for this to be fulfilled, for the sole reason that it should be fulfilled, none other, it was no longer possible. And yet, with their hands frozen in this funereal pose, Anne Desbaresdes stopped moaning.One last time,’ she begged, ‘tell me about it one last time.’Chauvin hesitated, his eyes somewhere else, still fixed on the back wall. Then he decided to tell her about it as if it were a memory.He had never dreamed, before meeting her, that he would one day want anything so badly.’And she acquiesced completely?’Wonderfully.’Anne Desbaresdes looked at Chauvin absently. Her voice became thin, almost childlike.I'd like to understand why his desire to have it happen one day was so wonderful?’Chauvin still avoided looking at her. Her voice was steady, wooden, the voice of a deaf person.There's no use trying to understand. It's beyond understanding.’You mean there are some things like that that can't be gone into?’I think so.’Anne Desbaresdes' expression became dull, almost stupid. Her lips had turned pale, they were gray and trembled as though she were on the verge of tears.She does nothing t try and stop him?’ she whispered.No. Have a little more wine.’She sipped her wine. He also drank, and his lips on the glass were also trembling.Time,’ he saidDoes it take a long time, a very long time?’Yes, a very long time. But I don't know anything.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Like you, I don't know anything. Nothing at all.’Anne Desbaresdes forced back her tears. Her voice was normal, momentarily awake.She will never speak again,’ she said.”

“I can't really remember the days. The light of the sun blurred and annihilated all color. But the nights, I remember them. The blue was more distant than the sky, beyond all depths, covering the bounds of the world. The sky, for me, was the stretch of pure brilliance crossing the blue, that cold coalescence beyond all color. Sometimes, it was in Vinh Long, when my mother was sad she'd order the gig and we'd drive out into the country to see the nighta s it was in the dry season. I had that good fortune- those nights, that mother. The light fell from the sky in cataracts of pure transparency, in torrents of silence and immobility. The air was blue, you could hold it in your hand. Blue. The sky was the continual throbbing of the brilliance of the light. The night lit up everything, all the country on either bank of the river as far as the eye could reach. Every night was different, each one had a name as long as it lasted. Their sound was that of the dogs, the country dogs baying at mystery. They answered on another from village to village, until the time and space of the night were utterly consumed.”

“Our mothers always remain the strangest, craziest people we've ever met.”