The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
Interpretation
Love is more about the feelings it evokes than the person or object we love.
Gore Vidal emphasizes that the essence of love lies not in whom or what we love, but in the powerful emotions and experiences that love creates within us. This perspective highlights the subjective nature of love, suggesting that it is the emotion itself that defines our relationships and enriches our lives, rather than the specific individuals or things that elicit those feelings.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of emotional connections in relationships.
We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.
Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.
For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.
Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.... To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.
Envy is the central fact of American life.
So dear I love him, that with him, all deaths I could endure, without him, live no life.
I think, am sure, a brother's love exceeds_x000D_ _x000D_ All the world's loves in its unworldliness.
Love demands expression. It will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no. It will break out in tongues of praise, the high note that smashes the glass and spills the liquid.
Well, for instance, when I left her today, she put her arms around me and felt my shoulder blades, to see if my wings were strong, she said.
Burn worldly love, _x000D_ rub the ashes and make ink of it, _x000D_ make the heart the pen, _x000D_ the intellect the writer, _x000D_ write that which has no end or limit.
She lived in her past life β every letter seemed to recall some circumstance of it. How well she remembered them all! His looks and tones, his dress, what he said and how β these relics and remembrances of dead affection were all that were left her in the world.
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