And the flavor of Pippa's kiss--bittersweet and strange--stayed with me all the way back uptown, swaying and sleepy as I sailed home on the bus, melting with sorrow and loveliness, a starry ache that lifted me up above the windswept city like a kite: my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the complex emotions associated with love, blending joy and sorrow into a bittersweet experience.
In this quote, Donna Tartt captures the profound and often contradictory feelings that accompany love. The 'bittersweet' nature of Pippa's kiss evokes a sense of longing and nostalgia, suggesting that love is not solely about happiness but also includes elements of sadness and yearning. The imagery of swaying on the bus and feeling both 'sorrow and loveliness' highlights the transformative power of love, which can elevate one's spirit even in moments of sadness.
In practice
During a speech about the complexities of love, one might include this quote to illustrate the profound feelings involved.
Does such a thing as 'the fatal flaw,' that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.
Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only—if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn’t it? And isn’t the whole point of things—beautiful things—that they connect you to some larger beauty?
But sometimes, unexpectedly, grief pounded over me in waves that left me gasping; and when the waves washed back, I found myself looking out over a brackish wreck which was illumined in a light so lucid, so heartsick and empty, that I could hardly remember that the world had ever been anything but dead.
Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw," that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature?
I've written only two novels, but they're both long ones, and they each took a decade to write.
The books I loved in childhood - the first loves - I’ve read so often that I’ve internalized them in some really essential way: they are more inside me now than out.
He who wins a thousand common hearts is entitled to some renown; but he who keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette is indeed a hero.
I wish I could love people as you do, Molly!' 'Don't you?' said the other, in surprise. 'No. A good number of people love me, I believe, or at least they think they do; but I never seem to care much for any one. I do believe I love you, little Molly, whom I have only known for ten days, better than any one.
She was cold by nature, self-love predominating over passion; rather than being virtuous, she preferred to have her pleasures all to herself.
there is a place in the heart that will never be filled a space and even during the best moments and the greatest times times we will know it we will know it more than ever there is a place in the heart that will never be filled and we will wait and wait in that space.
The ocean of the body crashes against the ocean of the heart. Between them is a barrier they cannot cross.
I want your sun to reach my raindrops, so your heat can raise my soul upward like a cloud.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.