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Time cures you first, and then it kills you.
Barbara Kingsolver
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Time has a dual effect; it can help to heal wounds but also brings about our mortality.

This quote by Barbara Kingsolver reflects on the paradoxical nature of time. On one hand, time is a healer, offering a remedy for pain and suffering, allowing individuals to process their experiences and emotions. On the other hand, time is also a reminder of our mortality, ultimately leading to the end of life. This duality prompts reflection on how we experience life and the healing process alongside the inevitability of death.

Themes

TimeHealingMortalityLifeParadox

In practice

Example use cases

This quote could be used in a speech about coping with loss during a memorial service.

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Sadness is more or less like a head cold - with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.
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Children can be your heartache. But that doesn't matter, you have to go on and have them . . . it works out.
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I'm of a fearsome mind to throw my arms around every living librarian who crosses my path, on behalf of the souls they never knew they saved.
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I did it to win love, and to prove myself capable. Not to move mountains. In my opinions, mountains don't move. They only look changed when you look down on them from great height.
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Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.
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Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It's the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else's pain is as meaningful as your own.
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