It's impossible to write about Native life without humor-that's how people maintain sanity.
Louise ErdrichRead
Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life inevitably brings challenges and pain, and meaningful connections are essential to navigate these experiences.
This quote by Louise Erdrich highlights the inevitability of suffering in life and the necessity of love and connection. It suggests that isolation and solitude, while often seen as a refuge, can lead to a different kind of pain characterized by longing and yearning. Ultimately, the quote emphasizes that embracing love and allowing oneself to be vulnerable is a fundamental aspect of existence, giving purpose to our lives despite the inevitability of heartbreak and struggle.
Themes
LifeLoveSolitudePainConnectionVulnerabilityExistence
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about overcoming adversity, one could use this quote to illustrate the importance of love and connection.
More from Louise Erdrich
All quotes →It was just enough to sit there without words.
Louise ErdrichRead
The world tips away when we look into our children's faces.
Louise ErdrichRead
...which causes me to wonder, my own purpose on so many days as humble as the spider's, what is beautiful that I make? What is elegant? What feeds the world?
Louise ErdrichRead
Her mind was present because she was always gone. Her hands were filled because they grasped the meaning of empty. Life was simple. Her husband returned and she served him with indifferent patience this time. When he asked what had happened to her heat for him, she gestured to the west. The sun was setting. The sky was a body of fire.
Louise ErdrichRead
All of our actions have in their doing the seed of their undoing. ... That in her creation of her children there should be the unspeakable promise of their death, for by their birth she had created mortal beings.
Louise ErdrichRead
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Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.
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I found myself in a sea in which the waves of joy and sorrow were clashing against each other.
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Annie turned away, her eyes glittering. 'Here's what no one tells you,' she said. 'When you deliver a fetus, you get a death certificate, but not a birth certificate. And afterward, your milk comes in, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.' She looked up at me. 'You can't win. Either you have the baby and wear your pain on the outside, or you don't have the baby, and you keep that ache in you forever. I know I didn't do the wrong thing. But I don't feel like I did the right thing, either.
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I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight orgies of young men, I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers.
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The emotionally sound person should be able to take risks, to ask himself what he really would like to do in life, and then to try to do this, even though he has to risk defeat or failure. He should be adventurous (though not necessarily foolhardy); be willing to try almost anything once, just to see how he likes it; and look forward to some breaks in his usual life routines.
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Life is conspiring in your favor. It may not always look that way, but it is, I assure you. Everything that is happening, is happening just the wayit must, in order for you to have the opportunity tocreate the experience of your Self for which you yearn.
Neale Donald WalschRead