There was a war going on in our house. A silent war that sounded no guns, and the bodies that fell were only wishes that died and the bullets were only words and the blood that spilled was always called pride.
Interpretation
This quote illustrates the struggle and conflict within a family hidden beneath the surface, emphasizing emotional pain and the harm caused by unspoken words.
Virginia C. Andrews describes the insidious nature of conflict within the domestic sphere. The quote portrays a metaphorical war, highlighting that the most injurious battles often occur silently, with words serving as weapons and unfulfilled desires leading to emotional casualties. It evokes the pain of unexpressed emotions and the pride that prevents healing, suggesting that familial relationships can be fraught with tensions that are not always visible but deeply felt.
In practice
This quote can be used in a family counseling session to illustrate the hidden tensions that often exist in households.
Love, how often that word came up in books over and over again. If you had wealth and health, and beauty and talent...you had nothing if you didn't have love. Love changed all that was ordinary into something giddy, powerful, drunken, enchanted.
After it's all over, the early childhood, a chain of birthdays woven with candlelight, piles of presents, voices of relatives singing and praising your promise and future, after the years of schooling, fitting yourself into different size desks, memorizing, reciting, reporting, and performing for jury after jury of teachers, counselors, and administrators, you still feel inadequate, alone, vulnerable, and naked in a world that can be unforgiving and terribly demanding.
Jane was my wicked stepmother: she was generous, affectionate and resourceful; she salvaged my schooling and I owe her an unknowable debt for that. One flaw: sometimes, early on, she would tell me things designed to make me think less of my mother, and I would wave her away, saying, Jane, this just backfires and makes me think less of you.
I am certain that I speak on behalf of my entire nation when I say: Today, we are all Americans. In grief, as in defiance.
It is a strange paradox that while the grief of football fans(and it is real grief) is private - we each have an individual relationship with our clubs, and I think that we are secretly convinced that none of the other fans understands quite why we have been harder hit than anyone else - we are forced to mourn in public, surrounded by people whose hurt is expressed in forms different from our own.
There is little that gives children greater pleasure than when a grown-up lets himself down to their level, renounces his oppressive superiority and plays with them as an equal.
I don't want to be married to someone who feels inferior to my success or because I make more money than he does.
He was ugly, himself. Weird-ugly. But ugliness in a man doesn't matter, much. Ugliness in a woman is her life.
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