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Families break up when they get hints you don't intend and miss hints that you do.
Robert Frost
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Families can become estranged due to misunderstandings and unspoken communication.

This quote by Robert Frost highlights the fragility of family relationships, emphasizing how misinterpretation of intentions can lead to discord. When family members fail to recognize or react to the signals each other sends, it creates a gap in understanding and connection, ultimately leading to the disintegration of familial bonds.

Themes

FamiliesCommunicationMisunderstandingRelationshipsConnection

In practice

Example use cases

In a family counseling session to highlight the importance of clear communication.

More from Robert Frost

Two such as you with such a master speed, cannot be parted nor be swept away, from one another once you are agreed, that life is only life forevermore, together wing to wing and oar to oar.
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You have freedom when you're easy in your harness.
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God made a beauteous garden With lovely flowers strown, But one straight, narrow pathway That was not overgrown. And to this beauteous garden He brought mankind to live, And said "To you, my children, These lovely flowers I give. Prune ye my vines and fig trees, With care my flowers tend, But keep the pathway open Your home is at the end." God's Garden
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'Warm in December, cold in June, you say?' _x000D_ _x000D_ I don't suppose the water's changed at all. _x000D_ _x000D_ You and I know enough to know it's warm _x000D_ _x000D_ Compared with cold, and cold compared with warm. _x000D_ _x000D_ But all the fun's in how you say a thing.
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For, dear me, why abandon a belief, Merely because it ceases to be true, Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt, It will turn true again, for so it goes.
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The question that he frames in all but words is what to make of a diminished thing.
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