She had heard Papa sing so many songs about the heart; the heart that was breaking - was aching - was dancing -was heavy laden - that leaped for joy - that was heavy in sorrow - that turned over - that stood still. She really believed the heart actually did those things.
Interpretation
The heart experiences a range of emotions, as expressed through music and poetry.
In this quote, Betty Smith illustrates the profound connection between music and emotions, particularly how the heart embodies various feelings—joy, sorrow, and everything in between. The reference to Papa singing songs suggests that through storytelling and artistry, we come to understand the complexities of human emotions, and the heart becomes a vessel for those experiences, evoking a belief in its physical manifestation of feelings.
In practice
Sharing this quote during a wedding to celebrate love and emotional connections.
Francie was ten years old when she first found an outlet in writing. What she wrote was of little consequence. What was important was that the attempt to write stories kept her straight on the dividing line between truth and fiction. If she had not found this outlet in writing, she might have grown up to be a tremendous liar.
Dear God," she prayed, "let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere - be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.
Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.
I know that's what people say-- you'll get over it. I'd say it, too. But I know it's not true. Oh, youll be happy again, never fear. But you won't forget. Every time you fall in love it will be because something in the man reminds you of him.
It was the last time she’d see the river from that window. The last time of anything has the poignancy of death itself. This that I see now, she thought, to see no more this way. Oh, the last time how clearly you see everything; as though a magnifying light had been turned on it. And you grieve because you hadn’t held it tighter when you had it every day.
It doesn't take long to write things of which you know nothing. When you write of actual things, it takes longer, because you have to live them first.
Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life.
My thoughts are crabbed and sallow,_x000D_ _x000D_ My tears like vinegar,_x000D_ _x000D_ Or the bitter blinking yellow_x000D_ _x000D_ Of an acetic star._x000D_ _x000D_ Tonight the caustic wind, love,_x000D_ _x000D_ Gossips late and soon,_x000D_ _x000D_ And I wear the wry-faced pucker of_x000D_ _x000D_ The sour lemon moon._x000D_ _x000D_ While like an early summer plum,_x000D_ _x000D_ Puny, green, and tart,_x000D_ _x000D_ Droops upon its wizened stem_x000D_ _x000D_ My lean, unripened heart.
I love to hear my Lord spoken of, and wherever I have seen the print of His shoe in the earth, there have I coveted to put mine also.
To love! To surrender absolutely, to prostrate oneself before the divine image, to die a thousand imaginary deaths, to annihilate every trace of self, to find the whole universe embodied and enshrined in the living image of another! Adolescent, we say. Rot! This is the germ of the future life, the seed which we hide away, which we bury deep within us, which we smother and stifle and do our utmost to destroy as we advance from one experience to another and flutter and flounder and lose our way.
She raised her eyes to his. They had both come from misery, she thought, and survived it. They had been drawn together through violence and tragedy, and had overcome it. They walked different paths and had found a mutual route. Some things last, she thought. Some ordinary things. Like love.
I am not yours, nor lost in you, not lost, although I long to be. Lost as a candle lit at noon, lost as a snowflake in the sea. You love me, and I find you still a spirit beautiful and bright, yet I am I, who long to be lost as a light is lost in light.
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