We couldn't imagine the emptiness of a creature who put a razor to her wrists and opened her veins, the emptiness and the calm.
Jeffrey EugenidesRead
Well, marriage doesn't function in the way it used to in terms of deciding our fate, but it's in our heads, and it determines a lot of our actions. Like, right now, if you think about gay marriage - and they just started having the first gay marriages in New York - it shows what a potent idea marriage remains for people.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Marriage is a significant concept that influences our behaviors and decisions, regardless of its changing societal functions.
Jeffrey Eugenides highlights the evolving nature of marriage and its profound impact on personal and social behavior. Even as the traditional roles and implications of marriage shift, the idea remains powerful and affects the way people, particularly in the context of gay marriage, navigate their relationships and societal norms.
Themes
MarriageRelationshipsSocietyGay MarriageImpact
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about modern relationships, one might use this quote to illustrate the evolving perceptions of marriage.
More from Jeffrey Eugenides
All quotes βIt was the combination of many factors... With most people, suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. With the Lisbon girls, the gun was loaded. A bullet for family abuse. A bullet for genetic predisposition. A bullet for historical malaise. A bullet for inevitable momentum. The other two bullets are impossible to name, but that doesn't mean the chambers were empty.
Jeffrey EugenidesRead
Depression is like a bruise that never goes away. A bruise in your mind. You just got to be careful not to touch it where it hurts. It's always there, though.
Jeffrey EugenidesRead
She lost much of her appetite. At night, an invisible hand kept shaking her awake every few hours. Grief was physiological, a disturbance of the blood. Sometimes a whole minute would pass in nameless dread - the bedside clock ticking, the blue moonlight coating the window like glue - before she`d remember the brutal fact that had caused it.
Jeffrey EugenidesRead
It was one of those humid days when the atmosphere gets confused. Sitting on the porch, you could feel it: the air wishing it was water.
Jeffrey EugenidesRead
Jerome was sliding and climbing on top of me and it felt like it had the night before, like a crushing weight. So do boys and men announce their intentions. They cover you like a sarcophagus lid. And call it love.
Jeffrey EugenidesRead
Similar quotes
I believe the greatest gift I can conceive of having from anyone is to be seen by them, heard by them, to be understood and touched by them.
Virginia SatirRead
I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow.
William BlakeRead
Old lovers go the way of old photographs, bleaching out gradually as in a slow bath of acid: first the moles and pimples, then the shadings. Then the faces themselves, until nothing remains but the general outlines.
Margaret AtwoodRead
Its the most breathtakingly ironic things about living: the fact that we are all-identical twins included-alone. Singular. And yet what we seek-what saves us-is our connection to others.
Wally LambRead
I believe in a world of opposites and thatβs why I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities.
Meryl StreepRead
If you were to give me forty such men, I never could be so happy as you. Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your happiness. No, no, let me shift for myself; and, perhaps, if I have very good luck, I may meet with another Mr. Collins in time.
Jane AustenRead