Reading a poem in translation is like kissing a woman through a veil.
Anne MichaelsRead
Long after you’ve forgotten someone’s voice, you can still remember the sound of their happiness or their sadness. You can feel it in your body.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Emotional memories of people linger even after their voices fade away.
This quote by Anne Michaels reflects on the profound impact that emotions can have on our memories of others. While we may forget specific details like someone's voice over time, the feelings they impart—whether happiness or sadness—remain with us, resonating within our emotional and physical experiences long after they are gone.
Themes
MemoryEmotionHappinessSadnessRelationships
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of emotional connections, this quote can highlight how relationships shape our lives.
More from Anne Michaels
All quotes →Hold a book in your hand and you're a pilgrim at the gates of a new city.
Anne MichaelsRead
When my parents were liberated, four years before I was born, they found that the ordinary world outside the camp had been eradicated. There was no more simple meal, no thing was less than extraordinary: a fork, a mattress, a clean shirt, a book. Not to mention such things that can make one weep: an orange, meat and vegetables, hot water. There was no ordinariness to return to, no refuge from the blinding potency of things, an apple screaming its sweet juice.
Anne MichaelsRead
If love wants you; if you've been melted down to stars, you will love with lungs and gills; with feathers and scales; with warm blood and cold.
Anne MichaelsRead
Love makes you see a place differently, just as you hold differently an object that belongs to someone you love. If you know one landscape well, you will look at all other landscapes differently. And if you learn to love one place, sometimes you can also learn to love another.
Anne MichaelsRead
There's a moment when love makes you believe in death for the first time. You recognize the one whose loss, even contemplated, you'll carry forever, like a sleeping child. All grief, anyone's grief...is the weight of a sleeping child.
Anne MichaelsRead
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Harsh words live in the dungeon of the heart
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