When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.
Interpretation
True love from a child can transform an adult's perception of reality.
This quote by Margery Williams suggests that the love of a child is profound and genuine, and it has the power to make a person feel truly authentic and real. When children express their love not just as a fleeting emotion but as a deep connection, it brings out the essence of who we are and reflects the importance of nurturing relationships in our lives.
In practice
In a speech about parenting, one might say, 'When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'
Real isn't how you are made. It's a thing that happens to you. Sometimes it hurts, but when you are Real you don't mind being hurt. It doesn't happen all at once. You become. Once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand. Once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.
Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.
He didn't mind how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real shabbiness doesn't matter.
When you are Real, shabbiness doesn't matter.
Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.
There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love.
God loves you just the way you are, but he refuses to leave you that way.
And the merry love the fiddle, and the merry love to dance.
I wouldnβt want to be faster or greener than now if you were with me O you were the best of all my days!
The time has come to tell the truth. Again. There is no love without justice. Men and women who cannot be just deny themselves and everyone they choose to be intimate with the freedom to know mutual love. If we remain unable to imagine a world where love can be recognized as a unifying principle that can lead us to seek and use power wisely, then we will remain wedded to a culture of domination that requires us to choose power over love.
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."
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