And none of these people, not one of them, had loved any of the others well enough. Failures, he thought, we're all failures... He wanted his love to be the wine and bread, and the blood and flesh. He reached for her, a dangerous stranger in a city of dangerous strangers, but she turned away from him and walked unsteadily through the crowd. How many loveless people walk among the barely loved?
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the inadequacies of love among people, portraying a sense of loneliness and yearning for deeper connection.
In this poignant observation, Sherman Alexie highlights the emptiness many individuals experience due to a lack of genuine love and emotional connection. The protagonist's desire for profound love is juxtaposed against the failures of others to fully embrace or reciprocate that love, illustrating a painful reality of living among people who are emotionally distant and unfulfilled. The metaphor of love as essential sustenance—comparable to wine and bread—emphasizes the idea that true love is vital for a meaningful existence.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a discussion on the importance of deep relationships at a community meeting.
Gordie, the white boy genius, gave me this book by a Russian dude named Tolstoy, who wrote, 'Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' Well, I hate to argue with a Russian genius, but Tolstoy didn't know Indians, and he didn't know that all Indian families are unhappy for the same exact reasons: the frikkin' booze.
My wife was the first romantic partner who understood both American and native parts of me - not so much the positive stuff, but the damage.
I draw because words are too unpredictable. I draw because words are too limited. If you speak and write in English, or Spanish, or Chinese, or any other language, then only a certain percentage of human beings will get your meaning. But when you draw a picture everybody can understand it. If I draw a cartoon of a flower, then every man, woman, and child in the world can look at it and say, "That's a flower.
We all have to find our own ways to say good-bye.
I write books for teenagers because I vividly remember what it felt like to be a teen facing everyday and epic dangers. I don't write to protect them. It's far too late for that. I write to give them weapons-in the form of words and ideas-that will help them fight their monsters. I write in blood because I remember what it felt like to bleed.
A lot of people have no idea that right now Y.A. (young adult). is the Garden of Eden of literature.
She recognized the strange happiness that came from loving something without knowing why you did, that strange happiness that was sometimes so big that it felt like sadness. It was the way she felt when she looked at the stars.
Absence, like death, sets a seal on the image of those we love: we cannot realize the intervening changes which time may have effected.
I'll paint you moments of gold, I'll spin you Valentine evenings.
Where did love begin?What human being looked at another and saw in their face the forests and the sea? Was there a day, exhausted and weary,dragging home food, arms cut and scarred, that you saw yellow flowers and, not knowing what you did, picked them because I love you? In the fossil record of our existence, there is no trace of love. You cannot find it held in the earth's crust, waiting to be discovered. The long bones of our ancestors show nothing of their hearts.
Let me tell you something - being thought of as a beautiful woman has spared me nothing in life. No heartache, no trouble. Love has been difficult. Beauty is essentially meaningless and it is always transitory.
I'm before him on my knees, and he kisses me He assumes I lose my reason and I do. Men are stupid, men are vain, Love's disgusting, love's insane, A humiliating business-oh how true.
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