Quotes About Connection

What troubles me is the Internet and the electronic technology revolution. Shyness is fueled in part by so many people spending huge amounts of time alone, isolated on e-mail, in chat rooms, which reduces their face-to-face contact with other people.

Close dancing may be the best inoculation against ideology.

any attachment bears within it the tragedy of loss.

I would know you anywhere for my true love. Whoever I was and whoever you were, I would know you at once for my true love.

He is my brother. She is my sister. Come what will, they are my kin.

I was born to be your rival,' she [Anne] said simply. 'And you mine. We're sisters, aren't we?

Nothing touches me more than cracks in the armor and the person who reveals them.

I think I love him for this loneliness, that it's what pushed me toward him. I love his aloofness, his disengagement with the outside world. Such singularity moves me.

I know that Thomas consented to this single picture only because he knew (had decided) that it was our last moment together. He smiled so that I could take his smile with me.

In the end, love was only possible because he saw me not as who I was, but as the person I would become.

Je me demande si la froideur des pères fait l'extrême sensibilité des fils.

He smiled so that I could take his smile with me.

Il me rend à la solitude. La plus profonde, celle qu'on ressent au cœur d'une foule.

He goes back to the books—this crazy number of books in the house neatly lined up or stacked in piles. All of a sudden I see a sort of admiration return to his face, but it's a painful admiration; what he likes about me is also what keeps me separate from him.

Je sais que Thomas n'a consenti à cette unique photo que parce qu'il avait compris (décidé) que c'était notre dernier moment ensemble. Il sourit pour que j'emporte son sourire avec moi.

His was the first male sex I held in my hand, other than my own. My first kiss was the one he gave me. My first embrace, skin against skin, was with him.

I add: It was then that we lost touch, he and I. These last words are articulated with the least possible affect, as if life is just like that sometimes, you spend time together and then lose touch and life goes on—as if there were no breaks from which you never quite recover.

I smile when he tells me the story. It's also the first time I've smiled at him. He smiles back at me. It seems as intimate to me, as magnetic, as skin against skin.

a sense of not belonging is something one inherits.

Si la vie m'était laissé, il se pourrait que je te prie de la partager avec moi.

And then, he asks me to take him. He says the words, without shame, without ordering me to either. I obey him, though I'm afraid. I know that it can hurt if the other person doesn't know how to do it, that the body can resist.

C'est important : il me regarde d'une certaine manière et n'en déviera pas. En fin de compte, l'amour n'a été possible que parce qu'il m'a non pas tel que j'étais, mais tel que j'allais devenir.

While the credits roll he says: That scene with the chain saw was great, wasn't it? I look at him and joke: Yeah, I almost grabbed you at that moment. He smiles back at me and I receive his smile like a gift. There weren't many times Thomas smiled at me like that. It wasn't his way.

Because now I know. I know that Thomas consented to this single picture only because he knew (had decided) that it was our last moment together. He smiled so that I could take his smile with me.