She was fluent in four languages and yet her fists against the rusted hood were the fullest articulation of her defeat.
Anthony MarraRead
There was a time when she had indulged in the hypothetical for hours a day, plotting the map that had led her here. But no life is a line, and hers was an uneven orbit around a dark star, a moth circling a dead bulb, searching for the light it once held.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life is not a straight path but a complex journey shaped by experiences.
This quote reflects on the nature of life as a non-linear journey, emphasizing that our paths are often erratic and influenced by various experiences and challenges. It draws a metaphor between a life mapped out hypothetically and the reality of navigating through obstacles, illustrating the search for meaning and light amidst difficulties.
Themes
LifeJourneyExperiencesStrugglesLight
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about resilience and personal growth.
More from Anthony Marra
All quotes →Her father was the face of her morning and night, he was everything, so saturating Havaa’s world that she could no more describe him than she could the air.
Anthony MarraRead
She wanted to hold foreign syllables like mints on her tongue until they dissolved into fluency.
Anthony MarraRead
Similar quotes
A society that presumes a norm of violence and celebrates aggression, whether in the subway, on the football field, or in the conduct of its business, cannot help making celebrities of the people who would destroy it.
Lewis H. LaphamRead
Actually, there is only one first question of government, and it is How should we live? or What kind of people do we want our citizens to be?
George WillRead
Gullibility and credulity are considered undesireable qualities in every department of human life - except religion ... Why are we praised by godly men for surrendering our 'godly gift' of reason when we cross their mental thresholds?
Christopher HitchensRead
The bonds between ourselves and another person exists only in our minds. Memory as it grows fainter loosens them, and notwithstanding the illusion by which we want to be duped and which, out of love, friendship, politeness, deference, duty, we dupe other people, we exist alone. Man is the creature who cannot escape from himself, who knows other people only in himself, and when he asserts the contrary, he is lying.
Marcel ProustRead
It is clear to everyone that astronomy at all events compels the soul to look upwards, and draws it from the things of this world to the other.
PlatoRead
Those who hate most fervently must have once loved deeply; those who want to deny the world must have once embraced what they now set on fire.
Kurt TucholskyRead