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.
For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.
You know that first love that leaves you? You never forget that, especially if you're a songwriter. I must have gotten nine songs out of that girl.
Some say love, it is a razor that leaves your soul to bleed.
Before she realized he was next to her, he had placed his hands over hers on the countertop, then hooped his fingers through hers. Gretel looked up at him, so startled she might as well have been shot. 'I just wanted to wake you up', he said. Which is exactly what he did. One look at him and her heart was racing. One look, and whatever had been before was all over.
We're not broken, just bent, and we can learn to love again.
You see, my brethren, my heart is full; I could almost say it is too big to speak, and yet too big to be silent, without dropping a word to you.
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