“Hiroshima Mon Amour” quotes

“Like you, I wanted an inconsolable memory. A memory of shadow and stone. Each day I fought, all alone, with all my might, against the terror of no longer knowing the reason to remember. Like you have forgotten.”

Emmanuelle Riva - Elle

“They make advertisements for soap. Why not for peace?”
Emmanuelle Riva - Elle

“How could I have known this city was big enough for love? How could I have known you were a perfect fit for my body?”

Emmanuelle Riva - Elle

“And then one day, my love, does eternity come to an end?”

Eiji Okada - Lui

“Why deny the obvious necessity for memory?”
Emmanuelle Riva - Elle

Listen to me. I know this, too. It will happen again. 200,000 dead, 80,000 wounded in nine seconds. Those are official figures. It will happen again. It will be 10,000 degrees on the earth. "Ten thousand suns," they will say. The asphalt will burn. A deep chaos will prevail. A whole city will be raised and once more crumble into ashes.
Emmanuelle Riva - Elle

“Just as in love, there is this illusion, this illusion that you will never be able to forget, the way I had the illusion, faced with Hiroshima, that I would never forget. Just as in love.”
Emmanuelle Riva - Elle

“Time will pass. Only time. And time will come. A time will come, when we can no longer name what it is that unites us. The name will gradually fade from our memory. Then it will disappear entirely.”
Emmanuelle Riva - Elle

“- Lui: What did Hiroshima mean to you, in France?
- Elle: The end of the war... completely, I mean. Amazement that they dared, amazement that they succeeded. And for us, the start of an unknown fear. Then, indifference. And fear of that indifference.”
Eiji Okada - Lui
Emmanuelle Riva - Elle

“All these years I've been looking for an impossible love.”
Emmanuelle Riva - Elle

“Like you, I have fought with all my might not to forget. Like you, I have forgotten.”

Emmanuelle Riva - Elle

“- Lui: What's the film you're in?
- Elle: A film about peace. What else would we be making in Hiroshima?”
Eiji Okada - Lui
Emmanuelle Riva - Elle

“Four times at the museum in Hiroshima. I saw people walking around. People walking, thoughtful, past the photographs and reconstructions, for lack of anything else. Photographs, photographs and reconstructions, for lack of anything else. Explanations, for lack of anything else. Four times at the museum in Hiroshima. I looked at the people. I...” (continue)(continue reading)
Emmanuelle Riva - Elle

“The illusion, quite simply, is so perfect, that tourists weep. It's easy to be cynical. But what else can a tourist possibly do, but weep?”
Emmanuelle Riva - Elle

“Sometimes we have to avoid thinking about the problems life presents. Otherwise we'd suffocate.”
Emmanuelle Riva - Elle

- Elle: I have dubious morals, you know.
- Lui: What do you call "having dubious morals"?
- Elle: Being dubious about other people's morals.
Emmanuelle Riva - Elle
Eiji Okada - Lui

“Some years from now, when I have forgotten you and other romances like this one have recurred through sheer habit, I will remember you as a symbol of love's forgetfulness. This affair will remind me how horrible forgetting is.”

Eiji Okada - Lui