From Éloge de l’amour (2009).
Love cannot be reduced to the first encounter, for it is a construction. The riddle of the idea of love is the mystery of how it comes into being. The most interesting point, at its core, is not the question of the ecstasy of beginnings. There is of course an ecstasy of beginnings, but love is above all about construction. Let us say that love is an adventure of persistence. The adventurous side is necessary, but it cannot be without persistence. To fall at the first obstacle, the first serious divergence, the first troubles, is only a disfigurement of love. True love is the one that triumphs durably, and yet sometimes with difficulty, the obstacles that space, the world, and time offer it.