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Some people just sleep with tons of cool people and have interesting lives.
Maybe this could be interpreted as some sort of version of Oskar come to epitomize John Hughes’s notion that “when you grow up your heart dies.” This relationship certainly doesn’t seem as dramatic and passionate as his affair with Alma, but I think it was good.
Certainly, there was always a corner of Oskar’s heart that belonged to Alma and remembered that great wild passion. But that’s not the kind of relationship that typically has staying power. Oskar needed someone to go to the movies with, and grow old with, and to make him chocolate desserts.
Ultimately, I think instead of being swept up in sex doll–beheading fury, most people would choose sitting around and eating rice pudding with someone they love and who loves them in return.
one of those “the past isn’t over, it isn’t even past” stories. Taylor and Burton were great together, at
How do you think Debbie offered to wash Elizabeth’s hair in a way that was not fraught with sexual overtones? Discuss.)
You can’t break up a happy marriage.
They were both kind of assholes, but they were meant to be.
Loving and forming relationships with people rarely allows us to keep our lives exactly the same. Loving is powerful because it is the opposite of stasis. Yes, the saying “a ship in
Our souls are like ships, waiting to be moved by an unstoppable force and launched into dark and unknown waters. What brave little souls we are. I hope that love takes us someplace wonderful—that we are all as fortunate as Timothy Dexter’s confoundingly lucky ships—but we can’t know that it will. That’s
On their deathbed, no one says, “Wow, what I regret most is making so many emotional connections with people.” We want to be moved. We crave it.
If you have had your heart broken because you tried to love, well, then you’re brave, too. You rejected keeping your life the way it was. You abandoned the comfort of stillness. You set off into uncharted territory. That’s very worthy of respect.
If the love ended badly, that’s OK. We live longer now than most of the people in this book, and you’re likely not in danger of being beheaded anytime soon. You will have more chances. The world is full of many openhearted people and many opportunities. That may be impossible to think about when you’re heartbroken, because heartbreak is awful, but if you took a chance on love in the first place, you are a courageous soul. There will be a time when you go out and are brave again.
