700 books
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1,190 voters
“Doctors and nurses offer unconditional care, they treat whomever it is their job to heal. In order to be ethical they must be impartial.
But to be in love is to be partial. It is to be specific. All romantic love is conditional, in that the condition is the persons essential nature. Their themness. If your love for a person isn’t predicated on the condition that they are them, right now as they are, and is instead predicated on their need for that love, or on your thinking that you could do a good job of making that person happier or better, then you are a nurse. You are a robot hero. And maybe you can save the day but you are not a lover. You are not in love.”
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But to be in love is to be partial. It is to be specific. All romantic love is conditional, in that the condition is the persons essential nature. Their themness. If your love for a person isn’t predicated on the condition that they are them, right now as they are, and is instead predicated on their need for that love, or on your thinking that you could do a good job of making that person happier or better, then you are a nurse. You are a robot hero. And maybe you can save the day but you are not a lover. You are not in love.”
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“Listen, who hasn't waited for something to happen? I know folks died waiting. I know hurt is a wandering song. I was lost in my fear.”
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“So identical were their pitiful whimpers, the way their screams gave way to desperate entreaties then returned to screams, that the notion came to me: this was what each of us would go through on our way to death, that these terrible noises were as universal as the crying of newborn babies.”
― When We Were Orphans
― When We Were Orphans
“I didn't understand: you don't believe what you believe on purpose. Could you be punished because certain ideas come into your mind?”
― Inseparable
― Inseparable
“Women disappear, and even if you are famous, it can happen without a sound, without a ripple. I have to assume that one night, when the stars were gleaming over-head, she met a devil on the road like so many of my friends did, and he offered her a spread of cards, flipping them between his pale fingers. Alcoholism, born-again reverence, madness, a quiet cottage, a noisy car wreck, a lonely house on the edge of the desert, a book she could use as a tomb, a single line etched in the boardwalk, they would have flickered by, and taking a deep breath, she would have closed her eyes and chosen.”
― Siren Queen
― Siren Queen
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