As a matter of fact she does not know to this day if those words were spoken, or if he only caught her, wound his arms around her, held her so tightly, with such continual, changing pressures that it seemed more than two arms were needed, that she was surrounded by him, his body strong and light, demanding and renouncing all at once, as if he was telling her she was wrong to give up on him, everything was possible, but then again that she was not wrong, he meant to stam himself on her and go.
Interpretation
The quote explores the complexities of love, attachment, and the ambiguity of emotions in a relationship.
In this quote, Alice Munro captures the profound and sometimes conflicting feelings that arise in intimate relationships. The imagery of being enveloped in another's embrace symbolizes both comfort and the struggle between connection and independence. It highlights the tension between wanting to hold onto someone and acknowledging that love can sometimes lead to a sense of loss or separation, reflecting the nuanced and often paradoxical nature of romantic feelings.
In practice
In a wedding speech to highlight the complexities of love.
Sometimes our connection is frayed, it is in danger, it seems almost lost. Views and streets deny knowledge of us, the air grows thin. Wouldn't we rather have a destiny to submit to, than, something that claims us, anything, instead of such flimsy choices, arbitrary days?
I was amazed as people must be who are seized and kidnapped, and who realize that in the strange world of their captors they have a value absolutely unconnected with anything they know about themselves.
Anecdotes don't make good stories. Generally I dig down underneath them so far that the story that finally comes out is not what people thought their anecdotes were about.
I just believed it easily, the way you might believe and in fact remember that you once had another set of teeth, now vanished but real in spite of that. Until one day, one day when I may even have been in my teens, I knew with a dim sort of hole in my insides that now I didn't believe it anymore.
You want in all cases for the story to get through the writing.
A story is not like a road to follow... it's more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside it altered by being viewed from these windows.
I never told my love vocally still.
The people who give you their food give you their heart.
What has never changed, what is always present and what is, in the end, what sustains us is that energy that I talk about in 'Like Water for Chocolate...' that loving energy. Without that, I wouldn't have had the strength to keep going and enjoy life.
Love, while always forgiving of imperfections and mistakes, can never cease to will their removal.
Love is a learned behavior. If you don't learn how to love yourself someone will teach you how to hate yourself.
Of all the Gods, Love is the best friend of humankind, the helper and healer of all ills that stand in the way of human happiness.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.