There's life for you. Spend the best years of your life studying penmanship and rhetoric and syntax and Beowulf and George Eliot, and then somebody steals your pencil.
Dorothy ParkerRead
Accursed from their birth they be Who seek to find monogamy, Pursuing it from bed to bed— I think they would be better dead.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the futility and hardship of seeking monogamous love in a promiscuous world.
Dorothy Parker's quote captures the sense of hopelessness that can accompany the pursuit of monogamy in an environment filled with transient relationships. It suggests that a relentless search for true love within such a superficial context can lead to despair and dissatisfaction, prompting the poet to imply that those who chase after it may be better off not pursuing it at all.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about modern dating challenges at a seminar.
There's life for you. Spend the best years of your life studying penmanship and rhetoric and syntax and Beowulf and George Eliot, and then somebody steals your pencil.
My land is bare of chattering folk; / the clouds are low along the ridges, / and sweet's the air with curly smoke / from all my burning bridges.
Prince or commoner, tenor or bass, Painter or plumber or never-do-well, Do me a favor and shut your face - Poets alone should kiss and tell.
They say of me, and so they should, It's doubtful if I come to good. I see acquaintances and friends Accumulating dividends And making enviable names In science, art and parlor games. But I, despite expert advice, Keep doing things I think are nice, And though to good I never come Inseparable my nose and thumb.
It is that word 'hunny,' my darlings, that marks the first place in The House at Pooh Corner at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up.
I can’t write five words but that I change seven.
She was not accustomed to taste the joys of solitude except in company.
Because,' Cormery went on, 'when I was very young, very foolish, and very much alone ... you paid attention to me and, without seeming to, you opened for me the door to everything I love in the world.
We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.
All B.S. aside, it all comes down to... we got to survive. I mean, even warriors put their spears down on Sundays. We got to survive here in this country... 'cause I'm not going back to Africa. We got to survive here. And for us to survive here-White folks, Black folks, Korean folks, Mexican folks, Puerto Ricans-we got to understand each other.
While privacy strengthens all our bonds, secrecy weakens and damages connection. Lerner points out that we do not usually "know the emotional costs of keeping a secret" until the truth is disclosed. Usually, secrecy involves lying. And lying is always the setting for potential betrayal and violation of trust.
To mind being disliked by a woman you don’t desire and are not married to is yet another serious failure of common sense.
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