The Hours

"Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more. It's a contrast."
~
"Would you be angry if I died?"
~
"Dear Leonard. To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away. Leonard, always the years between us, always the years. Always the love. Always the hours."
~
"Oh Mrs. Dalloway, always giving parties to cover the silence."
~
"I wanted to be a writer."
"So?"
"I wanted to write about it all... everything that happens in a moment. That way the flowers looked when you carried them in your arms. This towel, how it... smells, how it feels. Its thread. All our feelings, yours and mine. The history of it, who we once were. Everything in the world. Everything all mixed up... like it's mixed up now. And I failed. I failed. No, what you start with, it ends up being so much less. Sheer *f*-ing pride and stupidity." (Pause) We want everything, don't we?"
"I suppose we do."

--- The Hours. Screenplay by David Hare. Dir. Stephen Daldry. Perf. Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman. Paramount Pictures, 2002. Film. 

The first time I saw the film The Hours, I was scared of it. I was either 13 or 14 and it was first time I'd been confronted with women kissing each other on screen or in person. I was scared because this was not the film I thought I was going to be watching. I was also scared that Ma was going to walk in and I'd have to explain what I was watching. The content also was difficult to comprehend. The story wasn't in the movement or the action but in the dialogue. I couldn't wrap my head around it and never made it the halfway mark before I stopped watching.
The next time I saw the film was a couple of years later. I was older, more mature, and had a better understanding about both the darker and lighter sides of the world. Now, I was able to understand and appreciate the story, and it became one of my favorite movies. Soon after, I read the book and it is my favorite book.
As I writer, I understand how the above character feels about wanting to be able to write it all. It is literally impossible to write every single detail of what happens to a character and what they are feeling at that moment when whatever is happening is happening. It is impossible to either write it or to write it in a way that won't want to make your readers shoot themselves in the head.

Since the moment when I connected with that line, I have found comfort in The Hours even though it is a completely raw, moving, and depressing story. And while reading the opening pages of the book tonight, I felt moved to post some of my favorite quotes from (in particular) the movie from which this love started.