Through [my friends] I discovered what it was to love people. There was an art to it...which was not really all that different from the love that is necessary in the making of art. It required the effort of always seeing them for themselves and not as I wished them to be.
Interpretation
The quote reflects how love involves recognizing and appreciating people as they truly are, akin to the process of creating art.
Lucy Grealy emphasizes the deep connection between love and artistry, suggesting that both require an appreciation for authenticity. To truly love someone, one must see them for who they are, rather than trying to mold them into an idealized version of themselves, just as an artist must capture their subject's true essence.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a friendship celebration to highlight the importance of genuine love.
I spent five years of my life being treated for cancer, but since then I've spent fifteen years being treated for nothing other than looking different from everyone else. It was the pain from that, from feeling ugly, that I always viewed as the great tragedy of my life. The fact that I had cancer seemed minor in comparison.
When I tried to imagine being beautiful, I could only imagine living without the perpetual fear of being alone, without the great burden of isolation, which is what feeling ugly felt like.
I treated despair in terms of hierarchy: if there was a more important pain in the world, it meant my own was negated. I thought I simply had to accept the fact that I was ugly, and that to feel despair about it was simply wrong.
Love fills everything. It cannot be desired because it is an end in itself. It cannot betray because it has nothing to do with possession. It cannot be held prisoner because it is a river and will overflow its banks. Anyone who tries to imprison love will cut off the spring that feeds it, and the trapped water will grow stagnant.
To love yourself right now, just as you are, is to give yourself heaven. Don't wait until you die. If you wait, you die now. If you love, you live now.
If I am more alive because love burns and chars me, as a fire, given wood or wind, feels new elation, it's that he who lays me low is my salvation, and invigorates the more, the more he scars me.
You're the love of my life. I don't care how corny that sounds. You're the start of it, and the end of it. And you're the best of it.
Love Is the Treasure The temple of love is not love itself; True love is the treasure, Not the walls about it. Do not admire the decoration, But involve yourself in the essence, The perfume that invades and touches you- The beginning and the end. Discovered, this replaces all else, The apparent and the unknowable. Time and space are slaves to this presence.
Locked together in hatred. But I can't hate you Louis. Louis my love, I was mortal till you gave me your immortal kiss. You became my mother, and my father, and so I'm yours forever. But now it's time to end it, Louis. Now it's time to leave him.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.