No, it is not only our fate but our business to lose innocence, and once we have lost that, it is futile to attempt a picnic in Eden.
Elizabeth BowenRead
Karen, her elbows folded on the deck-rail, wanted to share with someone the pleasure in being alone: this is the paradox of any happy solitude. She had never landed at Cork, so this hill and that hill beyond were as unexpected as pictures at which you say "Oh look!" Nobody was beside her to share the moment, which would have been imperfect with anyone else there.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The joy of solitude can be profound, as it allows for personal experiences untainted by others.
This quote reflects the beauty of finding happiness in solitude, suggesting that some moments are best experienced alone. It emphasizes that being alone can lead to unexpected joys and profound appreciation of one's surroundings, highlighting the paradox that solitude can often be more fulfilling than shared experiences.
Themes
SolitudeHappinessParadoxExperienceJoy
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about the benefits of embracing solitude for personal growth.
More from Elizabeth Bowen
All quotes →The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends. The friend becomes a traitor by breaking, however unwillingly or sadly, out of our own zone: a hard judgment is passed on him, for all the pleas of the heart.
Elizabeth BowenRead
Dialogue must appear realistic without being so. Actual realism-the lifting, as it were, of passages from a stenographer's take-down of a 'real life' conversation-would be disruptive. Of what? Of the illusion of the novel. In 'real life' everything is diluted; in the novel everything is condensed.
Elizabeth BowenRead
When I read a story, I relive the moment from which it sprang. A scene burned itself into me, a building magnetized me, a mood orseason of Nature's penetrated me, history suddenly appeared to me in some tiny act, or a face had begun to haunt me before I glanced at it.
Elizabeth BowenRead
Habit, of which passion must be wary, may all the same be the sweetest part of love.
Elizabeth BowenRead
The writer, like a swimmer caught by an undertow, is borne in an unexpected direction. He is carried to a subject which has awaited him--a subject sometimes no part of his conscious plan. Reality, the reality of sensation, has accumulated where it was least sought. To write is to be captured--captured by some experience to which one may have given hardly a thought.
Elizabeth BowenRead
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