I'm hoping what all sentient beings hope ... that somehow I'm part of something larger than myself, in which I play a role, an actual role that is somehow intended and meaningful.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a desire for personal significance within a larger purpose or community.
In this quote, Anne Rice reflects on the human longing to feel connected to a greater whole and to contribute meaningfully to that larger existence. It emphasizes the search for purpose and the innate desire to belong, suggesting that each individual seeks to understand their place within the vastness of life and the universe.
In practice
In a graduation speech to inspire students to find their purpose in their careers.
From my stone pillow I have dreamed dreams of the mortal world above. I have heard its voices, its new music, as lullabies as I lie in my grave. I have envisioned its fantastical discoveries. I have known its courage in the timeless sanctum of my thoughts. And though it shuts me out with its dazzling forms, I long for one with the strength to roam it fearlessly, to ride the Devil's Road through its heart.
We all suffer under a curse, the curse that we know more than we can endure, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing we can do about the force and the lure of this knowledge.
And so this young one, this young one whom I had so loved, I had to forsake, no matter how broken my heart, no matter how lonely my soul, no matter how bruised my intellect and spirit.
Dear God, help me. Do not forget me on this tiny cinder lost in a galaxy that is lost–a heart no bigger than a speck of dust beating, beating against death, against meaninglessness, against guilt, against sorrow.
The vampires have always been metaphors for me. They've always been vehicles through which I can express things I have felt very, very deeply.
In the very depths of Hell, do not demons love one another?
If we open our history books, we shall see that the laws, for all that they are or should be contracts amongst free men, have rarely been anything but the tools of the passions of a few men or the offspring of a fleeting and haphazard necessity.
When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, sir, was the primary object.
I want to realize brotherhood or identity not merely with the beings called human, but I want to realize identity with all life, even with such things as crawl upon earth.
When I sleep every night, what am I called or not called? And when I wake, who am I if I was not I while I slept?
When our vices leave us, we like to imagine it is we who are leaving them.
A delusion is something that people believe in despite a total lack of evidence.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.