Cities, in many ways, are the best repositories for a love affair. You are in a forest or a cornfield, you are walking by the seashore, footprint after footprint of trodden sand, and somehow the kiss or the spoken covenant gets lost in the vastness and indifference of nature. In a city there are places to remind us of what has been.
Interpretation
Cities provide a backdrop that helps preserve memories of love, contrasting with the indifference of nature.
This quote by Edna O'Brien suggests that cities serve as living archives of love and romance. Unlike nature, which can often feel vast and indifferent, urban environments are filled with specific places that spark memories and emotions connected to past relationships, making them more meaningful and evocative reminders of love.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about the significance of urban landscapes in romantic relationships.
Love . . . is like nature, but in reverse; first it fruits, then it flowers, then it seems to wither, then it goes deep, deep down into its burrow, where no one sees it, where it is lost from sight, and ultimately people die with that secret buried inside their souls.
That is the mystery about writing: it comes out of afflictions, out of the gouged times, when the heart is cut open.
Darkness is drawn to light, but light does not know it; light must absorb the darkness and therefore meet its own extinguishment.
Oh, love, what an unreasoning creature it grew to be.
Recollection is not something that I can summon up, it simply comes and I am the servant of it.
It was the first time that I came face to face with madness and feared it and was fascinated by it.
There are some people who would never have fallen in love if they had not heard there was such a thing.
Love is the only reality and it is not a mere sentiment. It is the ultimate truth that lies at the heart of creation.
If you are one of earth’s inhabitants, how blest your father, and your gentle mother, blest all your kin. I know what happiness must send the warm tears to their eyes, each time they see their wondrous child go to the dancing! But one man’s destiny is more than blest—he who prevails, and takes you as his bride. Never have I laid eyes on equal beauty in man or woman. I am hushed indeed.
It was a lover and his lass, _x000D_ _x000D_ With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,_x000D_ _x000D_ That o'er the green corn-field did pass,_x000D_ _x000D_ In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,_x000D_ _x000D_ When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;_x000D_ _x000D_ Sweet lovers love the spring.
We are not actually equal - humanity - if we are not allowed to freely love one another.
His wedding gift, clasped round my throat. A choker of rubies, two inches wide, like an extraordinarily precious slit throat.
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