These things, she felt, were not to be passed around like disingenuous party favors. She kept an honor code with her journals and her poems. 'Inside, inside,' she would whisper quietly to herself when she felt the urge to tell.
Alice SeboldRead
Ruth hadn't talked to my sister since before my death, and then it was only to excuse herself in the hallway at school. But she'd seen Lindsey walking home with Samuel and seen her smile with him. She watched as my sister said yes to pancakes and no to everything else. She had tried to imagine herself being my sister as she had spent time imagining being me.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the complex emotions of observing relationships and the longing for connection.
In this quote, the speaker, reflecting on their own absence due to death, observes how their sister is moving on with her life, forming bonds and experiences that the speaker can no longer partake in. The quote highlights themes of longing, the struggle of connecting with others, and the emotional depth of relationships that persist despite loss, illustrating the intricacies of love and familial bonds.
Themes
RelationshipsLossLongingConnectionFamily
In practice
Example use cases
In a eulogy, highlighting how family bonds endure despite loss.
More from Alice Sebold
All quotes →After telling the hard facts to anyone from lover to friend, I have changed in their eyes. Often it is awe or admiration, sometimes it is repulsion, once or twice it has been fury hurled directly at me for reasons I remain unsure of.
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The stains could be seen only in the sunlight, so Ruth was never really aware of them until later, when she would stop at an outdoor cafe for a cup of coffee, and look down at her skirt and see the dark traces of spilled vodka or whiskey. The alcohol had the effect of making the black cloth blacker. This amused her; she had noted in her journal: 'booze affects material as it does people'.
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As she stood in the darkened room and watched my sister and father, I knew one of things that heaven meant. I had a choice, and it was not to divide my family in my heart.
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She liked to imagine that when she passed the world looked after her, but she also knew how anonymous she was.
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