He will wipe the tears from all faces.' It takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required
It felt very good to have him walking beside her. Good like rest and quiet, like something you could live without but you needed anyway. That you had to learn how to miss, and then you'd never stop missing it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses the deep emotional comfort found in companionship and the longing that arises from its absence.
Marilynne Robinson's quote poignantly captures the essence of companionship, illustrating how the presence of a loved one brings a sense of peace and fulfillment. It highlights that while one may not always recognize the importance of such companionship, the absence of it creates a profound sense of yearning and appreciation, emphasizing that love and connection are essential aspects of life that we often take for granted until they are gone.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a farewell speech to express the bittersweet feeling of parting from a loved one.
More from Marilynne Robinson
All quotes →It seems to me there is less meanness in atheism, by a good measure. It seems that the spirit of religious self-righteousness this article deplores is precisely the spirit in which it is written. Of course he's right about many things, one of them being the destructive potency of religious self-righteousness. (p. 146)
A narrow pond would form in the orchard, water clear as air covering grass and black leaves and fallen branches, all around it black leaves and drenched grass and fallen branches, and on it, slight as an image in an eye, sky, clouds, trees, our hovering faces and our cold hands.
The moon looks wonderful in this warm evening light, just as a candle flame looks beautiful in the light of morning. Light within light...It seems to me to be a metaphor for the human soul, the singular light within that great general light of existence.
There are worries that seem to me sustained by the love of worry. For example, that people are reading from screens, or listening to recorded books. Why scold the impulse to enjoy language and narrative in whatever form it takes?
Teaching is a distraction and a burden, but it's also an incredible stimulus. And a reprieve, in a way. When you're trying to work on something and it's not going anywhere, you can go to school and there's a two-and-a-half-hour block of time in which you can accomplish something.
Similar quotes
A friend of mine always says, ‘Women love me for the man I’m not.’
Compassion is the ability to understand how difficult it is for people to be the best of what they want to be at all times.
People don't contest that I'm British as a black man, but they do contest that I'm English. Too many people are going back to an ethnocentric idea of what being English means.
I've had no contact with my daughter for years. That's her choice. Anyway, you move on. If people don't want to bother with me, fine. You know, God bless them, and move on.
Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to.
I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they'll 'say something about it' or not. I hate if they do, and if they don't.