Perhaps our only sickness is to desire a truth which we cannot bear rather than to rest content with the fictions we manufacture out of each other.
She took kisses like so many coats of paint […] how long and how vainly I searched for excuses which might make her amorality if not palatable at lest understandable. I realize now the time I wasted in this way; instead of enjoying her and turning aside from these preoccupations with the thought, ‘She is untrustworthy as she is beautiful. She takes love as plants do water, lightly, thoughtlessly.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the complexity of loving someone who is beautiful yet untrustworthy, highlighting the conflict between desire and morality.
In this quote, Lawrence Durrell captures the paradox of falling for someone whose beauty is overshadowed by their moral ambiguity. The narrator expresses regret over the time spent seeking rationalizations for their lover's questionable actions instead of fully embracing the relationship as it is. This acknowledgment of love's complicated nature illustrates how our judgments can cloud our experiences, and how sometimes, one must accept the imperfections of a beloved to truly appreciate the moments shared.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a talk about the complexities of love and trust, this quote can exemplify the challenges people face in romantic relationships.
More from Lawrence Durrell
All quotes →I had become, with the approach of night, once more aware of loneliness and time - those two companions without whom no journey can yield us anything.
Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will-whatever we may think.
The whole Mediterranean, the sculpture, the palm, the gold beads, the bearded heroes, the wine, the ideas, the ships, the moonlight, the winged gorgons, the bronze men, the philosophers - all of it seems to rise in the sour, pungent taste of these black olives between the teeth. A taste older than meat, older than wine. A taste as old as cold water.
The heaviest impact of the work of art is in the guts. Art does not reason. It manhandles you and changes you.
Like all young men I set out to be a genius, but mercifully laughter intervened.
Similar quotes
I never look at the masses as my responsibility. I look at the individual. I can love only one person at a time. I can feed only one person at a time. Just one, one, one.
Your life has purpose as long as you dedicate it to love. It's not what we do but who we are that forms our biggest contribution.
She stood before him and surrendered herself to him and sky, forest, and brook all came toward him in new and resplendent colors, belonged to him, and spoke to him in his own language. And instead of merely winning a woman he embraced the entire world and every star in heaven glowed within him and sparkled with joy in his soul. He had loved and had found himself. But most people love to lose themselves.
The whole idea is to look at the television camera and present as much love as you possibly could to a person who might feel that he or she needs it.
She offered her mouth to him, as if enchanted. A Persian princess, a little Indian, a fox, a morning glory, a lovely wisteria--it always pleased them when you told them they looked like something, like something else.
Yes," I said, "for the love of God!