Reading a poem in translation is like kissing a woman through a veil.
Anne MichaelsRead
But sometimes the world disrobes, slips its dress off a shoulder, stops time for a beat. If we look up at that moment, it's not due to any ability of ours to pierce the darkness, it's the world's brief bestowal. The catastrophe of grace.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on moments of unexpected beauty and grace in life, highlighting their fleeting nature.
Anne Michaels' quote contemplates the transient moments in life when the ordinary reveals extraordinary beauty, suggesting that these experiences are gifts from the world rather than outcomes of our own efforts. The phrase 'catastrophe of grace' suggests that the beauty we encounter is both wondrous and potentially overwhelming, challenging us to recognize and appreciate these moments as rare and significant.
Themes
BeautyGraceMomentLifeTransience
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on the fleeting nature of happiness in a motivational speech.
More from Anne Michaels
All quotes →Hold a book in your hand and you're a pilgrim at the gates of a new city.
Anne MichaelsRead
When my parents were liberated, four years before I was born, they found that the ordinary world outside the camp had been eradicated. There was no more simple meal, no thing was less than extraordinary: a fork, a mattress, a clean shirt, a book. Not to mention such things that can make one weep: an orange, meat and vegetables, hot water. There was no ordinariness to return to, no refuge from the blinding potency of things, an apple screaming its sweet juice.
Anne MichaelsRead
If love wants you; if you've been melted down to stars, you will love with lungs and gills; with feathers and scales; with warm blood and cold.
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Long after you’ve forgotten someone’s voice, you can still remember the sound of their happiness or their sadness. You can feel it in your body.
Anne MichaelsRead
Love makes you see a place differently, just as you hold differently an object that belongs to someone you love. If you know one landscape well, you will look at all other landscapes differently. And if you learn to love one place, sometimes you can also learn to love another.
Anne MichaelsRead
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