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"We will never have Paris.”

I've never truly understood this line. I’ve always wondered where it came from and what it meant. Two years ago, I asked a friend if she knew its meaning, but she told me she had never heard of it. I googled it, and the search results showed me a 2014 American romantic comedy film. It turned out that the title is a reference to the 1942 film, Casablanca, and the line was originally,

“We will always have Paris.”

This line is derived from two characters, Rick and Ilsa, whom fall in love in the film. And Rick says this line to Ilsa. As summed up perfectly by YouTube channel, meiji990:

They knew the feelings they had for each other were strong, but they also knew it would be too difficult to stay together. So they came to the mutual decision to go their own separate ways and be satisfied with the happy memories they've had together up to that point. The scene demonstrates the moral value of sacrificing personal desire for greater good.

I suppose I’ve always found this line rather dramatic. Like earthquakes. Last month, a friend from Taipei told me she had experienced an earthquake in the middle of the night. She told me she had initially felt a little scared the first time it happened to her, but the earthquakes that she had experienced weren't too serious and occurred quite frequently in Taipei, so she eventually got used to it.

I’ve never experienced an earthquake before. I would never know what to do if I was ever in one. Sometimes I am curious about how I would feel if I ever encountered one. People always say, in Singapore, we will never have earthquakes. But perhaps we will never know what disruption truly feels like either. To have everything, and then to have potentially nothing, for one to ultimately to fight to get it all back.