He lifted me up and held me close against him, my head on his shoulder. At that moment I loved him. In the morning light he was as golden, as soft, as gentle as myself, and he would protect me.
Francoise SaganRead
I was thinking that I should be content to kiss him until the break of day. Bertrand ran out of kisses too soon; desire made them superfluous in his eyes. They were only a stage on the road to pleasure, not something inexhaustible and self-sufficient, as Luc had revealed them to me.
Interpretation
The quote explores the fleeting nature of desire and intimacy in relationships.
In this excerpt, the speaker reflects on the nature of kisses and intimacy, suggesting that while they may feel abundant in the moment, they are ultimately transient and linked to deeper desires for pleasure and connection. The comparison between two individuals highlights differing views on love and physical affection, where one sees kisses as mere steps toward greater joy, while the other finds them to be an endless source of satisfaction.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the nature of love and desire in romantic relationships.
He lifted me up and held me close against him, my head on his shoulder. At that moment I loved him. In the morning light he was as golden, as soft, as gentle as myself, and he would protect me.
No one is more conventional than a woman who is falling out of love.
The one thing I regret is that I will never have time to read all the books I want to read.
One can never speak enough of the virtues, the dangers, the power of shared laughter.
Of course the illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true. Life is amorphous, literature is formal.
I have loved to the point of madness; That which is called madness, That which to me, Is the only sensible way to love.
You were made perfectly to be loved - and surely I have loved you, in the idea of you, my whole life long.
The eyes those silent tongues of love.
She lived in her past life — every letter seemed to recall some circumstance of it. How well she remembered them all! His looks and tones, his dress, what he said and how — these relics and remembrances of dead affection were all that were left her in the world.
Lightning, your presence from ground to sky, no one knows what becomes of me, when you take me so quickly.
Beli at thirteen believed in love like a seventy-year-old widow who's been abandoned by family, husband, children and fortune believes in God.
Yes I have loved, as no one on earth ever loved, with an insensate and furious love, so violent that I wonder it did not break my heart
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