They had, finally, the only thing anyone really wants in life: someone to hold your hand when you die.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the deep human desire for companionship and comfort, especially in the face of death.
Lorrie Moore's quote encapsulates one of the most fundamental aspects of human existence: the need for connection and support. It emphasizes that, at the end of life, what truly matters is not material possessions or accolades, but having someone by your side who offers love and comfort during the most vulnerable moments. This deep bond underscores the significance of relationships and the warmth of human contact when faced with the inevitability of death.
In practice
In a eulogy, you might share this quote to highlight the importance of having loved ones around us in our final moments.
You couldn't pretend you had lost nothing... you had to begin there, not let your blood freeze over. If your heart turned away at this, it would turn away at something greater, then more and more until your heart stayed averted, immobile, your imagination redistributed away from the world and back only toward the bad maps of yourself, the sour pools of your own pulse, your own tiny, mean, and pointless wants.
I tried not to think about my life. I did not have any good solid plans for it long-term - no bad plans either, no plans at all - and the lostness of that, compared with the clear ambitions of my friends (marriage, children, law school), sometimes shamed me. Other times in my mind I defended such a condition as morally and intellectually superior - my life was open and ready and free - but that did not make it less lonely.
She was not good on the phone. She needed the face, the pattern of eyes, nose, trembling mouth... People talking were meant to look at a face, the disastrous cupcake of it, the hide-and-seek of the heart dashing across. With a phone, you said words, but you never watched them go in. You saw them off at the airport but never knew whether there was anyone there to greet them when they got off the plane.
No matter that you anticipate a thing; you get so used to it as part of the future that its actuality, its arrival, its force and presence, startles you, takes you by surprise, as would a ghost suddenly appearing in the room wearing familiar perfume and boots.
When I was in graduate school, I had a teacher who said to me, 'Women writers should marry somebody who thinks writing is cute. Because if they really realised what writing was, they would run a mile.'
She was unequal to anyone's wistfulness. She had made too little of her life. Its loneliness shamed her like a crime.
After all, life hasn't much to offer except youth, and I suppose for older people, the love of youth in others.
It hurt, and that is not a euphemism. It hurt like a beating.
When we talk about having a life of significance and meaning, it's not about fame or money or resources. It's about people and lives and hearts. That's my biggest passion in life.
A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book.
After great pain, a formal feeling comes β The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs β The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore, And Yesterday, or Centuries before? The Feet, mechanical, go round β Of Ground, or Air, or Ought β A Wooden way Regardless grown, A Quartz contentment, like a stone β This is the Hour of Lead β Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow β First β Chill β then Stupor β then the letting go β
When you grow up in abject poverty, you see people exactly the way they are.
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