Teenage girls have so much sway over culture, yet people sneer at the things that women and girls love, and are contemptuous of the creators of that content, particularly if they are women.
Leigh BardugoRead
Maybe love was superstition, a prayer we said to keep the truth of loneliness at bay. I tilted my head back. The stars looked like they were close together, when really they were millions of miles apart. In the end, maybe love just meant longing for something impossibly bright and forever out of reach.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the nature of love as a longing for something unattainable.
Leigh Bardugo's quote explores the idea that love may be more of a comforting illusion than a tangible reality. It suggests that our desire for love can be a way to distract ourselves from the deeper feelings of loneliness and isolation. The imagery of stars being close yet millions of miles apart emphasizes the beauty and distance of what we long for in love, suggesting that true fulfillment may always be out of reach.
In practice
This quote would be a poignant addition to a speech about the complexities of human emotions.
Teenage girls have so much sway over culture, yet people sneer at the things that women and girls love, and are contemptuous of the creators of that content, particularly if they are women.
Here's the thing, we talk about diversity in the media as if it's some weird artificial construct that we're putting onto these narratives. But it isn't. Our world is not homogenous. It is not all straight or white or able-bodied, or if it is, maybe you should make some new friends. That is not what our world looks like.
Most of the female characters I admire come from science fiction and fantasy, maybe because there's more permission to shake up gender roles in genre.
And I desperately needed books that would take me out of my environment and show me a world where being smart and brave and prepared was more important than being cute or cheerful or knowing the right thing to say. And that's what science fiction and fantasy gave me.
I think in YA there's sometimes a temptation to create heroines who are infinitely resilient and wise and confident because those are the behaviors we want to see teens embrace and maybe we want to see those things in ourselves.
The two genres that probably take the most flack in literature - they are young adult and romance right now. I don't think it's a coincidence that these are genres that provide places for women to express desire and love for adventure, for the opportunity to be placed to heroic roles.
Value God and his love more than all the world, though there were millions of them. He valued you before the world, and therefore is beforehand with you in his love. He not only loved you from everlasting, (whereas your love is but of yesterday,) but in the valuation of it, he loved you before all worlds, and preferred you to all worlds: though you loved the world first, before you loved him.
Selfishness is weakness. But loving and caring for others is a position of power beyond anything we can possibly imagine.
If I belittle those whom I am called to serve, talk of their weak points in contrast perhaps with what I think of as my strong points; if I adopt a superior attitude, forgetting "Who made thee to differ? and what hast thou that thou hast not received?" then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more,we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song. And if our hands should meet in another dream we shall build another tower in the sky.
It's crazy, if you think about it. The God of the universe - the creator of nitrogen and pine needles, galaxies and E-minor - loves us with a radical, unconditional, self-sacrificing love. And what is our typical response? We go to church, sing songs, and try not to cuss.
Thou art my single day, God lends to leaven What were all earth else, with a feel of heaven.
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