I have packed myself into silence so deeply and for so long that I can never unpack myself using words. When I speak, I only pack myself a little differently.
Herta MullerRead
Some people speak and sing and walk and sit and sleep and silence their homesickness, for a long time, and to no avail. Some say that over time homesickness loses its specific content, that it starts to smolder and only then becomes all-consuming, because it’s no longer focused on a concrete home. I am one of the people who say that.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the nature of homesickness and how it evolves over time.
Herta Müller explores the experience of homesickness, suggesting that while many try to ignore or suppress their longing for home through various activities, this feeling often persists and transforms over time. The quote highlights that homesickness can shift from a specific longing for a place to a more generalized sense of loss, becoming an overwhelming emotional state that consumes a person's thoughts and feelings.
In practice
During a farewell speech, one might use this quote to express the deep feelings associated with leaving a cherished place.
I’ve always liked the feeling of traveling light; there is something in me that wants to feel I could leave wherever I am, at any time, without any effort. The idea of being weighed down made me uneasy, as if I lived on the surface of a frozen lake and each new trapping of domestic life - a pot, a chair, a lamp - threatened to be the thing that sent me through the ice.
I understand a ship to be made for the carrying and preservation of the cargo, and so long as the ship can be saved, with the cargo, it should never be abandoned. This Union likewise should never be abandoned unless it fails and the possibility of its preservation shall cease to exist, without throwing passengers and cargo overboard.
Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.
Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me; try to discern the doe in me, trembling in the forest of my own iniquity; let's even smile a little. After all, there is no harm in smiling.
All essential knowledge relates to existence, or only such knowledge as has an essential relationship to existence is essential knowledge.
The legend of the best player of chess has been destroyed.
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