They had, finally, the only thing anyone really wants in life: someone to hold your hand when you die.
Lorrie MooreRead
Your numbness is something perhaps you cannot help. It is what the world has done to you. But your coldness. That is what you do to the world.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Our emotional responses might be shaped by external circumstances, but how we choose to interact with the world is our own responsibility.
This quote from Lorrie Moore highlights the distinction between feelings that may arise from external experiences and our conscious choices in how we respond to the world around us. It suggests that numbness can be an involuntary reaction to life's hardships, but coldness is a deliberate stance that can harm relationships and our connection to others. Therefore, while we may not be able to control our initial emotional reactions, we have the power and responsibility to choose how we engage with our environment and the people we encounter.
Themes
NumbnessColdnessResponsibilityEmotionWorld
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be shared during a discussion on emotional intelligence at a workshop.
More from Lorrie Moore
All quotes βYou couldn't pretend you had lost nothing... you had to begin there, not let your blood freeze over. If your heart turned away at this, it would turn away at something greater, then more and more until your heart stayed averted, immobile, your imagination redistributed away from the world and back only toward the bad maps of yourself, the sour pools of your own pulse, your own tiny, mean, and pointless wants.
Lorrie MooreRead
I tried not to think about my life. I did not have any good solid plans for it long-term - no bad plans either, no plans at all - and the lostness of that, compared with the clear ambitions of my friends (marriage, children, law school), sometimes shamed me. Other times in my mind I defended such a condition as morally and intellectually superior - my life was open and ready and free - but that did not make it less lonely.
Lorrie MooreRead
She was not good on the phone. She needed the face, the pattern of eyes, nose, trembling mouth... People talking were meant to look at a face, the disastrous cupcake of it, the hide-and-seek of the heart dashing across. With a phone, you said words, but you never watched them go in. You saw them off at the airport but never knew whether there was anyone there to greet them when they got off the plane.
Lorrie MooreRead
No matter that you anticipate a thing; you get so used to it as part of the future that its actuality, its arrival, its force and presence, startles you, takes you by surprise, as would a ghost suddenly appearing in the room wearing familiar perfume and boots.
Lorrie MooreRead
When I was in graduate school, I had a teacher who said to me, 'Women writers should marry somebody who thinks writing is cute. Because if they really realised what writing was, they would run a mile.'
Lorrie MooreRead
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