Middlesex Quote by Jeffery Eugenides
““It was a little like Into the Sands, with Claude Barron, which she'd seen a couple of weeks ago. In that picture Claude Barron enlists in the Foreign Legion because Rita Carrol marries another guy. The other guy turns out to be a cheater and drinker, and so Rita Carrol leaves him and travels out to the desert where Claude Barron if fighting the Arabs. By the time Rita Carrol gets there he’s in the hospital, wounded, or not a hospital really but just a tent and she tells him she loves him and Claude Barron says, “I went into the desert to forget about you. But the sand was the color of your hair. The desert sky was the color of your eyes. There was nowhere I could go that wouldn’t be you.” And then he dies. Tessie cried buckets. Her mascara ran, staining the collar of her blouse something awful.””
About This Quote
Source Novel: The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides, 1993
A lover reflects on how even a desert cannot erase the memory of a beloved, showing love’s in.
In simple terms: Love lingers even in empty places.
Key Takeaway
Accept that some memories are inescapable.
Themes
love
memory
loss
obsession
Mood
melancholic
poetic
Type
literary
emotional
When to use this quote
- breakup
- war
- personal reflection
- creative writing
Key Concepts
attachment
grief
identity
Questions to Reflect On
- What memories do you carry into new environments?
- Can love be both beautiful and painful?
A Different Perspective
The metaphor may romanticize unhealthy attachment.
