Me & Other Writing Quotes

“I was in a milieu that never looked to literary critics for what to read. When I happened upon reviews of the books I had read after the fact, I didn’t recognize my reading experience. Criticism, especially written, journalistic, kills the book it portrays. To keep the book from obstructing the critic’s operation, the review immobilizes the book, puts it to sleep, distances it and kills it without understanding it, and it remains killed by the reading of the story. All literary criticism is lethal because we are not forced to read anything. And so we linger in the corridors of literature. But the book remains dead.”
― Marguerite Duras, Me & Other Writing

“That people kill themselves because of my books won’t stop me from writing. If people turned into reactionaries, political assholes after reading me, yes, that would stop me from writing, but not if they killed themselves.”
― Marguerite Duras, Me & Other Writing