Sometimes I’m terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants. The way it stops and starts.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the complexity and fear of deep emotional desires and the unpredictable nature of love.
Edgar Allan Poe's quote expresses the tumultuous and often frightening nature of love and desire. He likens the heart's insatiable cravings to a source of terror, highlighting how love can be both exhilarating and alarming as it persists in its pursuit of what it yearns for, often without regard for the consequences or the unpredictability involved.
In practice
Use this quote in a discussion about the complications of romantic relationships.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow, Assailed the monarch's high estate; (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow Shall dawn upon him desolate!) And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed, Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.
Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes.
...the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair.
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best have gone to their eternal rest.
I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
In our endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember.
The true lover realizes that freedom is needed for loyalty to blossom.
My vocation, at last I have found it; my vocation is love.
Isn't it grand, isn't it good, that language has only one word for everything we associate with love - from utter sanctity to the most fleshly lust? The result is perfect clarity in ambiguity, for love cannot be disembodied even in its most sanctified forms, nor is it without sanctity even at its most fleshly. Love is always simply itself, both as a subtle affirmation of life and as the highest passion; love is our sympathy with organic life.
Love, in the sense of spontaneous, unreflective action, spells the death of the old man.
You are protected, in short, by your ability to love!
The last time I saw Paris, her heart was warm and gay, I heard the laughter of her heart in every street café.
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