Falling in love, we said; I fell for him. We were falling…
““Falling in love, we said; I fell for him. We were falling women. We believed in it, this downward motion: so lovely, like flying, and yet at the same time so dire, so extreme, so unlikely. God is love, they once said, but we reversed that, and love, like heaven, was always just around the corner. The more difficult it was to love the particular man beside us, the more we believed in Love, abstract and total. We were waiting, always, for the incarnation. That word, made flesh. And sometimes it happened, for a time. That kind of love comes and goes and is hard to remember afterwards, like pain. You would look at the man one day and you would think, I loved you, and the tense would be past, and you would be filled with a sense of wonder, because it was such an amazing and precarious and dumb thing to have done; and you would know too why your friends had been evasive about it, at the time. There is a good deal of comfort, now, in remembering this.””
About This Quote
This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation.
The passage reflects on love as a paradoxical, often fleeting experience that oscillates between idealized abstraction and painful reality, highlighting the tension between yearning for a perfect love and the messy truth of human relationships.
In simple terms: Love can be both ideal and painful.
Key Takeaway
Embrace love’s complexity, not just its ideal.
Themes
love
paradox
idealism
reality
longing
Mood
melancholic
thoughtful
Type
literary
philosophical
When to use this quote
- relationships
- personal growth
- creative writing
- therapy
Key Concepts
existentialism
romanticism
human experience
Questions to Reflect On
- How do you balance ideal love with real people?
- What does “love as pain” teach you?
A Different Perspective
The quote may romanticize suffering.