Every story is a story about death. But perhaps, if we are lucky, our story about death is also a story about love.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that while all stories ultimately deal with death, the most meaningful ones also encompass themes of love.
Helen Humphreys highlights the paradox of storytelling and existence by asserting that every narrative inevitably confronts the concept of death. However, she introduces an optimistic perspective that within these stories, there can be an exploration of love, which enriches our understanding of life and gives deeper significance to the inevitability of mortality.
In practice
In a speech about overcoming loss, one might say, 'As Helen Humphreys puts it, 'Every story is a story about death, but our story about death can also be a story about love.'
Memory is a barricade against forgetting; light is a bulwark against darkness; life is a flex against the stillness of the grave. Maybe that's what I'm trying to do here, clear a space in all the debris, through all the anxieties and worries, where I can just exist, easily and simply, entire, for as long as I have left.
Maybe reading was just a way to make her feel less alone, to keep her company. When you read something you are stopped, the moment is stayed, you can sometimes be there more fully than you can in your real life.
Who wooed in haste, and means to wed at leisure.
Maybe what a gay icon is, is a person who is rooted for β in other words, cheered on β by people who feel different.
Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffering.
How can I be kind? How can I find bird-relief in the nest-building of day-to-day? Necessity supplies no velvet wing with which to escape. I am indeed and mortally pierced with the seeds of love.
Ah, me, if this is love, then how it torments.
A heart can no more be forced to love than a stomach can be forced to digest food by persuasion.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.