These things, she felt, were not to be passed around like disingenuous party favors. She kept an honor code with her journals and her poems. 'Inside, inside,' she would whisper quietly to herself when she felt the urge to tell.
Alice SeboldRead
How could it be that you could love someone so much and keep it secret from yourself as you woke daily so far from home?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote explores the complexity of hidden emotions and the struggle of loving someone while being disconnected from that love.
Alice Sebold's quote reflects on the paradox of deep love that remains unacknowledged or unrealized by the lover. It highlights the internal conflict of feeling a profound connection while simultaneously waking up to the reality of distance and emotional repression, suggesting that the heart can harbor feelings that the mind may choose to ignore.
Themes
LoveHidden EmotionsFeelingsConnectionDistance
In practice
Example use cases
In a romantic setting, discussing the quote can evoke a deeper conversation about unacknowledged feelings.
More from Alice Sebold
All quotes βAfter telling the hard facts to anyone from lover to friend, I have changed in their eyes. Often it is awe or admiration, sometimes it is repulsion, once or twice it has been fury hurled directly at me for reasons I remain unsure of.
Alice SeboldRead
The stains could be seen only in the sunlight, so Ruth was never really aware of them until later, when she would stop at an outdoor cafe for a cup of coffee, and look down at her skirt and see the dark traces of spilled vodka or whiskey. The alcohol had the effect of making the black cloth blacker. This amused her; she had noted in her journal: 'booze affects material as it does people'.
Alice SeboldRead
Murderers are not monsters, they're men. And that's the most frightening thing about them.
Alice SeboldRead
As she stood in the darkened room and watched my sister and father, I knew one of things that heaven meant. I had a choice, and it was not to divide my family in my heart.
Alice SeboldRead
She liked to imagine that when she passed the world looked after her, but she also knew how anonymous she was.
Alice SeboldRead
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