She missed him the days when some pretext served to take him away from her, just as one misses the sun on a cloudy day without having thought much about the sun when it was shining.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the feeling of longing for someone only when they are absent, similar to missing the sun on a cloudy day.
In this quote, Kate Chopin captures the emotional depth of love and absence. It conveys how people often take for granted the presence of loved ones, only to realize their significance and the void they create when they're not around. The comparison to the sun emphasizes how easy it is to overlook the warmth and light someone brings until they are missing from our lives.
In practice
This quote resonates well during a wedding toast or when discussing the significance of companionship.
She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again. Edna heard her father's voice and her sister Margaret's. She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to the sycamore tree. The spurs of the cavalry officer clanged as he walked across the porch. There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air. (last lines)
There were days when she was unhappy, she did not know why,--when it did not seem worthwhile to be glad or sorry, to be alive or dead; when life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium and humanity like worms struggling blindly toward inevitable annihilation.
She's got some sort of notion in her head concerning the eternal rights of women.
Well, for instance, when I left her today, she put her arms around me and felt my shoulder blades, to see if my wings were strong, she said.
I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself.
There would be no one there to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistance with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world.
I think I fall into the category of the hopeless romantic, and I think youdo too, because you're here...The tricky thing about us, the hopeless romantic, is when we fall in love with someone, when we say hello—and it’s magical—we never imagine that hello can turn into a goodbye. And when we kiss someone—and it’s magical—we never ever imagine that it can turn into a last kiss.
Love. Be curious. Always try to do your best.
The honorary duty of a human being is to love.
To love one child and to love all children, whether living or dead -somewhere these two loves come together. To love a no-good but humble punk and to love an honest man who believes himself to be an honest man -somewhere these, too, come together.
But that afternoon he asked himself, with his infinite capacity for illusion, if such pitiless indifference might not be a subterfuge for hiding the torments of love.
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