If I said I was madly in love with you, I'd be lying and what's more, you'd know it.
Margaret MitchellRead
All really nice girls wonder when men don't try to kiss them. They know they shouldn't want them to and they know they must act insulted if they do, but just the same, they wish the men would try.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the complex emotions women experience regarding romantic advances from men.
Margaret Mitchell highlights the paradoxical feelings many women face when it comes to men making advances. While societal expectations dictate that women should be offended by overt attempts, there is an underlying desire for affection and validation, suggesting that these conflicting emotions can often create tension in romantic interactions.
In practice
In a discussion about romantic relationships during a women's retreat.
If I said I was madly in love with you, I'd be lying and what's more, you'd know it.
You're like the thief who isn't the least bit sorry he stole, but is terribly, terribly sorry he's going to jail. - Rhett Butler
It's a curse - this not wanting to look on naked realities. Until the war, life was never more real to me than a shadow show on a curtain. And I preferred it so. I do not like the outlines of things to be too sharp. I like them gently blurred, a little hazy.
Well, my dear, take heart. Some day, I will kiss you and you will like it. But not now, so I beg you not to be too impatient.
men are so conceited they’ll believe anything that flatters them
Oh, why was he so handsomely blond, so courteously aloof, so maddeningly boring with his talk about Europe and books and music and poetry and things that interested her not at all - and yet so desirable?
It sometimes makes people feel better about themselves, you know, to put other people down, or make fun of them, or maybe make mockery of their work and that doesn't make me feel good at all.
When you protect yourself from pain, be sure you do not protect yourself from love.
For my own part, I would rather be in company with a dead man than with an absent one; for if the dead man gives me no pleasure, at least he shows me no contempt; whereas the absent one, silently indeed, but very plainly, tells me that he does not think me worth his attention.
Strange how one person can saturate a room with vitality, with excitement. Then there are others, and this dame was one of them, who can drain off energy and joy, can suck pleasure dry and get no sustenance from it. Such people spread a grayness in the air about them.
The most congenial social occasions are those ruled by cheerful deference of each for all.
Relationships are eternal. The 'separation' is another chapter in the relationship. Often, letting go of the old form of the relationship becomes a lesson in pure love much deeper than any would have learned had the couple stayed together.
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