People cry at weddings for the same reason they cry at happy endings: because they so desperately want to believe in something they know is not credible.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the human desire to believe in love and happiness, despite recognizing the uncertainties in life.
Margaret Atwood's quote suggests that emotions expressed during weddings and happy endings stem from a deep-seated yearning for belief in ideals—such as love and joy—especially when we know these ideals can sometimes feel unrealistic. The tears shed signify a complex mix of hope, longing, and the bittersweet realization that happiness may be fleeting or unattainable, yet we still choose to embrace these moments.
In practice
A best man’s speech could include this quote to highlight the emotional depth of weddings.
If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go; but it’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength.
I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off.
What else can I do? Once you've gone this far you aren't fit for anything else. Something happens to your mind. You're overqualified, overspecialized, and everybody knows it. Nobody in any other game would be crazy enough to hire me. I wouldn't even make a good ditch-digger, I'd start tearing apart the sewer-system, trying to pick-axe and unearth all those chthonic symbols - pipes, valves, cloacal conduits... No, no. I'll have to be a slave in the paper-mines for all time.
We love each other, that’s true whatever it means, but we aren’t good at it; for some it’s a talent, for others only an addiction.
I've learned quite a lot, over the years, by avoiding what I was supposed to be learning.
Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.
Love hard when there is love to be had. Because perfect guys don’t exist, but there’s always one guy that is perfect for you.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist.
...he hopes that maybe it'll make people a little less scared of two boys kissing than they were before, and a little more welcoming to the idea that all people are, in fact, born equal, no matter who they kiss or screw, no matter what dreams they have or love they give.
It was an evil doom that set her in his path. For she is a fair maiden, fairest lady of a house of queens. And yet I know not how I should speak of her. When I first looked on her and perceived her unhappiness, it seemed to me that I saw a white flower standing straight and proud, shapely as a lily and yet knew that it was hard, as if wrought by elf-wrights out of steel.
Smiles from reason flow, To brute deny'd, and are of love the food.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, so shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
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