Reading a poem in translation is like kissing a woman through a veil.
Anne MichaelsRead
When my parents were liberated, four years before I was born, they found that the ordinary world outside the camp had been eradicated. There was no more simple meal, no thing was less than extraordinary: a fork, a mattress, a clean shirt, a book. Not to mention such things that can make one weep: an orange, meat and vegetables, hot water. There was no ordinariness to return to, no refuge from the blinding potency of things, an apple screaming its sweet juice.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the profound appreciation for simple things after experiencing extreme hardship and loss.
Anne Michaels' quote speaks to the extraordinary significance of mundane items after the trauma of a horrific experience. After her parents' liberation from a concentration camp, the world that greeted them was unrecognizable and filled with a newfound appreciation for simple pleasures. The quote suggests that the ordinary becomes extraordinary when one has faced the loss of basic comforts, highlighting how human experiences shape our perspectives on life and gratitude.
Themes
Gr GratitudeAppreciationHuman ExperienceOrdinary ThingsLife'S Simplicity
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about resilience, you might quote this to illustrate how hardship can enhance our appreciation for life's simple joys.
More from Anne Michaels
All quotes →Hold a book in your hand and you're a pilgrim at the gates of a new city.
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If love wants you; if you've been melted down to stars, you will love with lungs and gills; with feathers and scales; with warm blood and cold.
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Long after you’ve forgotten someone’s voice, you can still remember the sound of their happiness or their sadness. You can feel it in your body.
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Love makes you see a place differently, just as you hold differently an object that belongs to someone you love. If you know one landscape well, you will look at all other landscapes differently. And if you learn to love one place, sometimes you can also learn to love another.
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There's a moment when love makes you believe in death for the first time. You recognize the one whose loss, even contemplated, you'll carry forever, like a sleeping child. All grief, anyone's grief...is the weight of a sleeping child.
Anne MichaelsRead
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