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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the importance of family unity and emotional choices regarding love and connection.
In this quote, Alice Sebold encapsulates the profound realization that true love and belonging to a family involves making deliberate emotional choices. It suggests that even in the face of darkness or struggle, one can choose to embrace familial bonds and not let circumstances divide them emotionally. The essence of 'heaven' here is tied to the love and togetherness that family brings, regardless of external situations.
Themes
FamilyLoveUnityChoiceConnection
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a family reunion speech to emphasize the importance of staying connected.
More from Alice Sebold
All quotes →After 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'.
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Murderers are not monsters, they're men. And that's the most frightening thing about them.
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She liked to imagine that when she passed the world looked after her, but she also knew how anonymous she was.
Alice SeboldRead
There was one thing my murderer didn't understand; he didn't understand how much a father could love his child.
Alice SeboldRead
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