The Infatuations by Javier Marías

 

"When you want something for a long time, it's very difficult to stop wanting it, I mean, to admit or realize that you no longer desire it or that you would prefer something else. Waiting feeds and fosters that desire, waiting is accumulative as regards the thing awaited, it solidifies desire and turns it to stone and then to resist acknowledging that we have wasted years expecting a signal, which, when it finally comes, no longer tempts us, or else we simply can't be bothered to answer a belated call that we no longer trust, perhaps because it doesn't now suit us to move. One grows accustomed to waiting for an opportunity that never comes, feeling deep down rather calm and safe and passive, unable quite to believe that it never will present itself."