I've never known before what it feels like to want someone - not to want to hook up with them or whatever, but to want them, to want them. And now I do. So maybe I do believe in epiphanies.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a deep longing for genuine emotional connection rather than physical attraction.
In this quote, John Green captures the essence of true desire that goes beyond superficial attraction. The speaker reflects on a profound realization of wanting someone not just for a fleeting romantic encounter, but for a meaningful, heartfelt connection. This longing represents an epiphany about love, indicating the significance and depth of genuine emotional ties that can develop between individuals.
In practice
During a wedding speech, I might quote this to highlight the depth of true love.
Always' was a promise! How can you just break the promise?" "Sometimes people don't always understand the promises they're making when they make them," I said. Isaac shot me a look. "Right, of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That's what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway. Don't you believe in true love?" I didn't answer. I didn't have an answer. But I thought that if true love did exist, that was a pretty good definition of it.
Augustus Waters was the great star-crossed love of my life. Ours was an epic love story, and I won’t be able to get more than a sentence into it without disappearing into a puddle of tears. Gus knew. Gus knows. I will not tell you our love story, because—like all real love stories—it will die with us, as it should.
I find it really offensive when people say that the emotional experiences of teenagers are less real or less important than those of adults. I am an adult, and I used to be a teenager, and so I can tell you with some authority that my feelings then were as real as my feelings are now.
I don't think pandemics make us afraid of death, I think they make us afraid of oblivion. They force us to grapple with the futility of effort. Also they make us barf which isn't fun either... Wash your hands, cover your coughs, and find a way to hold in balance the futility of effort with the necessity to struggle.
So often we try to make other people feel better by minimizing their pain, by telling them that it will get better (which it will) or that there are worse things in the world (which there are). But that's not what I actually needed. What I actually needed was for someone to tell me that it hurt because it mattered. I have found this very useful to think about over the years, and I find that it is a lot easier and more bearable to be sad when you aren't constantly berating yourself for being sad.
We kiss. Her hands are freezing on my face, and she tastes like coffee and the smell of the onion is still stuck in my nose, and my lips are all dry from the endless winter. And it's awesome.
Beware of her fair hair, for she excels All women in the magic of her locks; And when she winds them round a young man's neck, She will not ever set him free again.
Once that living love is destroyed by contraception, abortion follows very easily.
Distance never seperates two hearts that really care, for our memories span the miles and in seconds we are there. But whenever I start feeling sad cuz I miss you I remind myself how lucky I am to have someone so special to miss.
Everyone has love, but it can only come out when he is convinced of the impossibility and the frustration of trying to love himself.
Universal love is a glove without fingers, which fits all bands alike and none closely; but true affection is like a glove with fingers, which fits one hand only, and sits close to that one.
I want to be with my best friend. My best friend, my wife. Who could ask for anything more?
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