That I have no right to be jealous is irrelevant. It is a human passion: the sick, white underbelly of love.
A single action can cause a life to veer off in a direction it was never meant to go. Falling in love can do that, you think. And so can a wild party. You marvel at the way each has the power to forever alter an individual's compass. And it is the knowing that such a thing can so easily happen, as you did not know before, not really, that has fundamentally changed you and your son.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects how a single event, like falling in love or attending a party, can drastically change the course of one's life.
Anita Shreve's quote speaks to the profound impact that seemingly small actions or moments can have on a person's life trajectory. It emphasizes the unexpected nature of these changes, particularly through experiences such as love and revelry, which can redefine one's path and alter one's perceptions. The narrator conveys a sense of awe and realization regarding the transformative power of these experiences, not only for oneself but also in the context of family, highlighting how these shifts can have enduring effects on relationships.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote in a motivational speech about embracing life's changes.
More from Anita Shreve
All quotes →And she thought then how strange it was that disaster--the sort of disaster that drained the blood from your body and took the air out of your lungs and hit you again and again in the face--could be at times, such a thing of beauty.
I learned that night that love is never as ferocious as when you think it is going to leave you. We are not always allowed this knowledge, and so our love sometimes becomes retrospective.
Similar quotes
I worry hope will crush me, the way love has so many times before. Are they so different, hope and love? O & E in the same place, half of the other in each word. Both swimming in unknowns. I’ve been through the big changes. These ones should seem easier in comparison, I should be more prepared, but they don’t and I’m not. Sometimes I feel like a broken-wing butterfly, clinging to a window screen. Afraid to let go. Afraid to stay. Wondering how much wing is enough to fly.
I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and in spite of what most people might have expected from a young girl growing up deaf, life for me was like one long episode of The Brady Bunch. Despite whatever barriers were in my way, I imagined myself as Marcia Brady skating down the street saying “hi” to everyone, whether they knew me or not.
It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars.
He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most. God will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us.
When faith did come, it came, I think, by way of my little paralyzed daughter. Her lifeless hands led me; I think her tiny feet still know beautiful paths.
I don't like to give the sob story: growing up in a single-parent home, never knew my father, my mother never worked, and when friends came over I'd hide the welfare cheese. Yo, I failed ninth grade three times, but I don't think it was necessarily 'cause I'm stupid. I didn't go to school. I couldn't deal.