I think we are bound to, and by, nature. We may want to deny this connection and try to believe we control the external world, but every time there's a snowstorm or drought, we know our fate is tied to the world around us
She liked to disappear, even when she was in the same room as other people. It was a talent, as it was a curse.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the struggle of feeling isolated even in the presence of others, highlighting a duality of being talented at withdrawing yet cursed by the loneliness it brings.
This quote captures the essence of emotional isolation and the paradox of being physically present but emotionally distant. It suggests that some individuals possess a unique ability to blend into their surroundings or to disengage from social interactions, which simultaneously serves as a protective talent and a painful curse that often results in feelings of loneliness and invisibility.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a discussion about mental health and the importance of emotional connections.
More from Alice Hoffman
All quotes βBefore she realized he was next to her, he had placed his hands over hers on the countertop, then hooped his fingers through hers. Gretel looked up at him, so startled she might as well have been shot. 'I just wanted to wake you up', he said. Which is exactly what he did. One look at him and her heart was racing. One look, and whatever had been before was all over.
Do people choose the art that inspires them β do they think it over, decide they might prefer the fabulous to the real? For me, it was those early readings of fairy tales that made me who I was as a reader and, later on, as a storyteller.
I never plot out my novels in terms of the tone of the book. Hopefully, once a story is begun it reveals itself
My theory is that everyone at one time or another has been at the fringe of society in some way: an outcast in high school, a stranger in a foreign country, the best at something, the worst at something, the one who's different. Being an outsider is the one thing we all have in common.
My grandmother told me once that when you lose somebody you think you've lost the whole world as well, but that's not the way things turn out in the end. Eventually, you pick yourself up and look out the window, and once you do you see everything that was there before the world ended is out there still. There are the same apple trees and the same songbirds, and over our heads, the very same sky that shines like heaven, so far above us we can never hope to reach such heights.
Similar quotes
People who fundamentally disagree with you politically or socially are not bad people. I can't expect that other side to have compassion for me if I can't put myself in their shoes, too.
I'm also interested in the modern suggestion that you can have a combination of love and sex in a marriage - which no previous society has ever believed.
Malaysians talk with Mauritians, Arabs with Australians, South Africans with Sri Lankans, and Iranians with Indonesians. The Indian Ocean serves as both a sea separating them and a bridge linking them together.
My worst mistake has been not grasping that time goes by. It was going by and there I was, set in the attitude of the ideal wife of an ideal husband. Instead of bringing our sexual relationship to life again I brooded happily over memories of our former nights together.
Every hour that passed added to her grief, because it bore her further away from the living man, and because it was a tiny foretaste of the eternity she would have to spend without him.
Besides, all my New York friends were in the negative, nightmare position of putting down society and giving their tired bookish or political or psychoanalytical reasons, but Dean just raced in society, eager for bread and love.