Because that is when you love somebody - when you see them being game in the face of the worst. Not courageous. Not heroic. Just game.
Interpretation
Loving someone means appreciating their resilience during tough times.
This quote by Philip Roth emphasizes that true love is shown when someone supports and admires another person's ability to face difficult challenges. It suggests that love is about being there for someone and recognizing their strength, not necessarily expecting grand acts of bravery or heroism, but rather a steadfastness and willingness to engage with life’s hardships.
In practice
During a speech at a wedding, one might say, 'True love is evident when you see your partner being game in the face of adversity.'
American society [...] not only sanctions gross and unfair relations among men, but it encourages them. Now, can that be denied? No. Rivalry, competition, envy, jealousy, all that is malignant in human character is nourished by the system. Possession, money, property--on such corrupt standards as these do you people measure happiness and success.
I have a slogan I use when I get anxious writing, which happens quite a bit: ‘the ordeal is part of the commitment.’ It’s one of my mantras. It makes a lot of things doable.
Everybody who flashed the signs of loyalty he took to be loyal. Everybody who flashed the signs of intelligence he took to be intelligent. And so he had failed to see into his daughter, failed to see into his wife, failed to see into his one and only mistress—probably had never even begun to see into himself
When you publish a book, it's the world's book. The world edits it.
It isn't that you subordinate your ideas to the force of the facts in autobiography but that you construct a sequence of stories to bind up the facts with a persuasive hypothesis that unravels your history's meaning.
That's what you're looking for as a writer when you're working. You're looking for your own freedom. To lose your inhibition to delve deep into your memory and experiences and life and then to find the prose that will persuade the reader.
Every soul is to be cherished, every flower is to bloom.
His voice was as intimate as the rustle of sheets.
I need more than anything right now what is, of course, most impossible, someone to love me, to be with me at night when I wake up in shuddering horror and fear of the cement tunnels leading down to the shock room, to comfort me with an assurance that no psychiatrist can quite manage to convey.
However old a conjugal union, it still garners some sweetness. Winter has some cloudless days, and under the snow a few flowers still bloom.
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world.
Beloved, till life can charm no more; And mourned, till Pity's self be dead.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.