Depression is the flaw in love. There's no such thing as love without the anticipation of loss. And that specter of despair can be the engine of intimacy.
Andrew SolomonRead
Parenthood abruptly catapults us into a permanent relationship with a stranger.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Parenthood creates an enduring bond with a new individual that we must learn to understand and navigate.
This quote reflects the profound and often unexpected journey of parenthood, where one is thrust into a lifelong connection with their child, who starts as a stranger. It highlights the challenges and adventures of building a relationship with someone entirely new to us, requiring patience, adaptability, and love.
Themes
ParenthoodRelationshipFamilyLoveStranger
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about parenting at a local community center.
More from Andrew Solomon
All quotes βI don't accept subtractive models of love, only additive ones. And I believe that in the same way we need species diversity to ensure that the planet can go on, so we need this diversity of affection and diversity of family in order to strengthen the ecosphere of kindness.
Andrew SolomonRead
While people argue with one another about the specifics of Freud's work and blame him for the prejudices of his time, they overlook the fundamental truth of his writing, his grand humility: that we frequently do not know our own motivations in life and are prisoners to what we cannot understand. We can recognize only a small fragment of our own, and an even smaller fragment of anyone else's, impetus.
Andrew SolomonRead
I believe that words are strong, that they can overwhelm what we fear when fear seems more awful than life is good.
Andrew SolomonRead
Then I repeated these words to my spirits: 'Leave me be; give me peace; and let me do the work of my life. I will never forget you.' Something about that incantation was particularly appealing to me. 'I will never forget you'-- as though one had to address the pride of the spirits, as though one wanted them to feel good about being exorcised.
Andrew SolomonRead
Some people are trapped by the belief that love comes in finite quantities, and that our kind of love exhausts the supply upon which they need to draw. I do not accept competitive models of love, only additive ones.
Andrew SolomonRead
Similar quotes
I need to stop carving out four-hour chunks to do random things and go home and watch my children grow up.
Neil Patrick HarrisRead
I feel like there are women who are genuinely born to be mothers, and women who are born to be aunties, and women who really probably not should be allowed near children. The tragedy that happens is when any one of those women ends up in the wrong category.
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Fathering imposed an obligation that was more than your money, your body, or your time, a presence neither physical nor measurable by clocks: open-ended, eternal, and invisible, like the commitment of gravity to the stars.
Michael ChabonRead
Of all my father's teachings, the most enduring was the one about the true measure of a man. That true measure was how well he provided for his children, and it stuck with me as if it were etched in my brain.
Sidney PoitierRead
Where I grew up, I feel lucky to have been from there. The culture in general is rooted with a strong sense of family; of kin; of place, geographically; of tradition. There's a resilience, a strong will to make it. I mean, heck, it was settled by a bunch of outcasts that didn't fit in.
Tyler ChildersRead
The family is a community of love where each of us learns to relate to others and to the world around us.
Pope FrancisRead