They had nothing to say to each other. A five-year age gap between siblings is like a garden that needs constant attention. Even three months apart allows the weeds to grow up between you.
Interpretation
The quote illustrates the challenges that can arise in sibling relationships due to age differences and the need for continuous effort to maintain closeness.
Zadie Smith reflects on the nuances of sibling relationships, emphasizing that even a small age gap can create emotional distance if not nurtured. The metaphor of a garden suggests that relationships require ongoing care and attention; without it, misunderstandings and distance can grow like weeds, further complicating the bond between siblings.
In practice
In a speech about family dynamics, one could use this quote to highlight the importance of maintaining sibling relationships.
Because immigrants have always been particularly prone to repetition - it's something to do with that experience of moving from West to East or East to West or from island to island. Even when you arrive, you're still going back and forth; your children are going round and round. There's no proper term for it - original sin seems too harsh; maybe original trauma would be better.
You know, you don't expect everyone to be as educated as everyone else or have the same achievements, but you expect at least to be offered at least some of the opportunities, and libraries are the most simple and the most open way to give people access to books.
He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he ever had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.
We cannot be all the writers all the time. We can only be who we are. Which leads me to my second point: writers do not write what they want, they write what they can.
I think of reading like a balanced diet; if your sentences are too baggy, too baroque, cut back on fatty Foster Wallace, say, and pick up Kafka as roughage.
I never attended a creative writing class in my life. I have a horror of them.
When you feel WHOLE, things come to enhance your WHOLEness. When you feel broken, things come to enhance your brokenness. That's why you CANNOT FILL A VOID. That's why the premise from which you attract your relationship is so important.
It is impossible to forgive someone if you feel superior to him or her.
Loads of my friends are lesbians, and it really annoys me that gay people aren't allowed to get married in most parts of America. I'd go on a march for gay rights any time.
What do you know of my heart? What do you know of anything but your own suffering. For weeks, Marianne, I've had this pressing on me without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature. It was forced on me by the very person whose prior claims ruined all my hope. I have endured her exultations again and again whilst knowing myself to be divided from Edward forever. Believe me, Marianne, had I not been bound to silence I could have provided proof enough of a broken heart, even for you.
The WWII generation shares so many common values: duty, honor, country, personal responsibility and the marriage vow " For better or for worse--it was the last generation in which, broadly speaking, marriage was a commitment and divorce was not an option
Although many, we might even say most, strangers in this world become easily the victim of a fearful hostility, it is possible for men and women and obligatory for Christians to offer an open and hospitable space where strangers can cast off their strangeness and become our fellow human beings.
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