why does what was beautiful shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths?
Bernhard SchlinkRead
Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Happiness can be fleeting, and our memories of it may be tainted by subsequent sadness.
This quote reflects on the nature of happiness and memory, suggesting that the joy we once felt can be overshadowed by later negative experiences. It highlights the complex relationship between our past happiness and the eventual unhappiness that can alter our memories, indicating that the essence of joy can be lost when it is followed by sorrow.
Themes
HappinessMemorySadnessExperienceContrast
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote in a discussion about the impermanence of happiness during a support group.
More from Bernhard Schlink
All quotes βThe tectonic layers of our lives rest so tightly one on top of the other that we always come up against earlier events in later ones, not as matter that has been fully formed and pushed aside, but absolutely present and alive. I understand this. Nonetheless, I sometimes find it hard to bear.
Bernhard SchlinkRead
It wasn't that I forgot Hanna. But at a certain point the memory of her stopped accompanying me wherever I went. She stayed behind, the way a city stays behind as a train pulls out of the station. It's there, somewhere behind you, and you could go back and make sure of it. But why should you?
Bernhard SchlinkRead
She was struggling, as she always had struggled, not to show what she could do but to hide what she couldn't do. A life made up of advances that were actually frantic retreats and victories that were concealed defeats.
Bernhard SchlinkRead
Desires, memories, fears, passions form labyrinths in which we lose and find and then lose ourselves again.
Bernhard SchlinkRead
...I had to point at Hanna. But the finger I pointed at her turned back to me. I had loved her. I tried to tell myself that I had known nothing of what she had done when I chose her. I tried to talk myself into the state of innocence in which children love their parents. But love of our parents is the only love for which we are not responsible. ...And perhaps we are responsible even for the love we feel for our parents.
Bernhard SchlinkRead
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