I wanted to tell her that being loved is a talent too, that it takes as much guts and as much work as loving; that some people, for whatever reason, never learn the knack
Interpretation
Being loved requires effort and skill, just as loving someone does.
This quote emphasizes that the ability to receive love is not passive; it involves a form of effort and courage similar to that of giving love. It suggests that some individuals may struggle with this because they have not developed the skills or confidence necessary to accept love fully, illustrating the complexities of human relationships.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about healthy relationships during a counseling session.
I used to think I sewed us together at the edges with my own hands, pulled the stitches tight and I could unpick them any time I wanted. Now I think it always ran deeper than that and farther, underground; out of sight and way beyond my control.
Over time, the ghosts of things that happened start to turn distant; once they've cut you a couple of million times, their edges blunt on your scar tissue, they wear thin. The ones that slice like razors forever are the ghosts of things that never got the chance to happen.
Don't get discouraged if you're hammering away at a sentence or a paragraph or a chapter, and it keeps coming out wrong. You're allowed to get it wrong, as many times as you need to; you only need to get it right once.
Most animals are pragmatic about mysteries: If they run across something they don't understand, all they care about is whether it's edible and whether it's dangerous. Humans, on the other hand, are drawn to the mystery for its own sake.
If you're writing a scene for a character with whom you disagree in every way, you still need to show how that character is absolutely justified in his or her own mind, or the scene will come across as being about the author's views rather than about the character's.
I had been right: freedom smelled like ozone and thunderstorms and gunpowder all at once, like snow and bonfires and cut grass, it tasted like seawater and oranges.
For years your name never passed my lips, while my soul drank in, with a delirious thirst, all that was uttered in my presence respecting you.
What everyone forgets is that passion is not merely a heightened sensual fusion but a way of life which produces, as in the mystics, an ecstatic awareness of the whole of life.
Agape's object is always the concrete individual, not some abstraction called humanity. Love of humanity is easy because humanity does not surprise you with inconvenient demands. You never find humanity on your doorstep, stinking and begging.
God is love, and that love works through men-especially through the whole community of Christians.
Kiss me out of desire, but not consolation.
When you're associating with the people that you love, doing what you love, it doesn't get any better than that.
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