Ask her what she craved, and she'd get a little frantic about things like books, the woods, music. Plants and the seasons. Also freedom. Not being bought and sold by some idiot employer, not having the moments of her days valued in fractions of a dollar by somebody other than herself.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a deep desire for personal freedom and the appreciation of simple pleasures in life.
In this quote, Charles Frazier explores the yearning for autonomy and a connection to the natural world, highlighting the importance of valuing one's own time and experiences. It emphasizes the need for freedom from the constraints imposed by societal expectations and financial obligations, suggesting that true fulfillment comes from pursuing one's passions and appreciating life’s simple joys.
In practice
During a speech about work-life balance, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of valuing personal time and passions.
...she knew in her heart that nature has a preference for a particular order: parents die, then children die. But it was a harsh design, offering little relief from pain, for being in accord with it means that the fortunate find themselves orphaned.
Surely it is a sin to reject the few gifts we are given. Be happy in the flash of time granted to us or hurt forever.
But I believe the words entered me and changed me and still work in me. The words eat me and sustain me. And when I'm dead and in a box in the dark dark ground, and all my various souls have died and I am nothing but insensible bones, something in the marrow will still feel yearning, desire persisting beyond flesh.
And then she thought that you went on living one day after another, and in time you were somebody else, your previous self only like a close relative, a sister or brother, with whom you shared a past. But a different person, a separate life. Certainly neither she nor Inman were the people they had been the last time they were together. And she believed maybe she liked them both better now.
That's not a thing any of us are granted. To go back. Wipe away what later doesn't suit us and make it the way we wish it. You just go on
What I wanted to do was slap him down a bit with wit and words. Grammar and vocabulary as a weapon. But what kind of world would it be if we all took every opportunity presented to us to assault the weak?
It was by one Union that we achieved our independence and liberties, and by it alone can they be maintained.
The utterance of God is a lamp, whose light is these words: Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch. Deal ye one with another with the utmost love and harmony... So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth.
Slavery, protection, and monopoly find defenders, not only in those who profit by them, but in those who suffer by them.
What seems fair enough against a squalid huckster of bad liquor may take on a different face, if used by a government determined to suppress political opposition under the guise of sedition.
Every being has its own interior, its self, its mystery, its numinous aspect. To deprive any being of this sacred quality is to disrupt the total order of the universe. Reverence will be total or it will not be at all. The universe does not come to us in pieces any more than a human individual stands before us with some part of his/her being.
Auguries of innocence "The emmet's inch and eagle's mile Make lame philosophy to smile. He who doubts from what he sees Will ne'er believe, do what you please.
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