...their eyes are full of kindness as each feels the full effect of novelty after a short separation. They are drawing a relaxation from each other's presence, a new serenity.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the joy and tranquility that comes from reuniting with loved ones after a brief separation.
F. Scott Fitzgerald captures the essence of human connection in this quote, illustrating how a short absence can enhance feelings of kindness and serenity when two people come together again. The shared experience of novelty highlights the importance of relationships and the comfort derived from being with someone who understands and values you.
In practice
In a romantic speech to highlight the importance of love and connection after time apart.
Don't be so anxious about it,' she laughed. 'I'm not used to being loved. I wouldn't know what to do; I never got the trick of it.' She looked down at him, shy and fatigued. 'So here we are. I told you years ago that I had the makings of Cinderella.' He took her hand; she drew it back instinctively and then replaced it in his. 'Beg your pardon. Not even used to being touched. But I'm not afraid of you, if you stay quiet and don't move suddenly.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
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."
The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby.
But you can love more than just one person, can't you?
A sudden gust of rain blew over them and then another - as if small liquid clouds were bouncing along the land. Lightning entered the sea far off and the air blew full of crackling thunder. The table cloths blew around the pillars. They blew and blew and blew. The flags twisted around the red chairs like live things, the banners were ragged, the corners of the table tore off through the burbling billowing ends of the cloths.
I have friends of mine who have died of AIDS and many of those friends...did not tell me until the very end...because they felt that there was a stigma, a taboo, attached to it...now we have more women infected with HIV/AIDS, many of those women were infected by their husbands who did not tell them
We learn best to listen to our own voices if we are listening at the same time to other women - whose stories, for all our differences, turn out, if we listen well, to be our stories also.
Merit and knowledge will not gain hearts, though they will secure them when gained.
As long as I am alive, I am fully committed to amity between Tibetans and Chinese. Otherwise there's no use.
Those with dementia are still people and they still have stories and they still have character and they're all individuals and they're all unique. And they just need to be interacted with on a human level.
Empathic listening is so powerful because it gives you accurate data to work with. Instead of projecting your own autobiography and assuming thoughts, feelings, motives and interpretation, you're dealing with the reality inside another person's head and heart. You're listening to understand. You're focused on receiving the deep communication of another human soul.
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