I like people and I like them to like me, but I wear my heart where God put it, on the inside.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the desire for mutual affection while emphasizing the importance of emotional vulnerability.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's quote captures the duality of human relationships where one seeks acceptance and affection from others, yet remains guarded about their deeper emotions. It highlights the balance between being sociable and maintaining personal boundaries, suggesting that while we enjoy being liked, the true essence of our emotions is often hidden from view, reserved for those we truly trust.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a discussion on emotional honesty in friendships.
Don't be so anxious about it,' she laughed. 'I'm not used to being loved. I wouldn't know what to do; I never got the trick of it.' She looked down at him, shy and fatigued. 'So here we are. I told you years ago that I had the makings of Cinderella.' He took her hand; she drew it back instinctively and then replaced it in his. 'Beg your pardon. Not even used to being touched. But I'm not afraid of you, if you stay quiet and don't move suddenly.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
It was about then [1920] that I wrote a line which certain people will not let me forget: "She was a faded but still lovely woman of twenty-seven."
The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby.
But you can love more than just one person, can't you?
A sudden gust of rain blew over them and then another - as if small liquid clouds were bouncing along the land. Lightning entered the sea far off and the air blew full of crackling thunder. The table cloths blew around the pillars. They blew and blew and blew. The flags twisted around the red chairs like live things, the banners were ragged, the corners of the table tore off through the burbling billowing ends of the cloths.
A lot of black women still carry a lot of pain when they see black men with women who aren't black, and that's really unfortunate that that could make us so upset. It has to do with self esteem.
They say it's the white man I should fear, But it's my own kind doin' all the killin' here.
The elephant, not only the largest but the most intelligent of animals, provides us with an excellent example. It is faithful and tenderly loving to the female of its choice, mating only every third year and then for no more than five days, and so secretly as never to be seen, until, on the sixth day, it appears and goes at once to wash its whole body in the river, unwilling to return to the herd until thus purified. Such good and modest habits are an example to husband and wife.
It's always been a great survival value for people to believe they belong to a superior tribe. That's just in human relationships.
How do you live with one person for 13 years and another for eight and find both as alien as strangers?
A system could not well have been devised more studiously hostile to human happiness than marriage.
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