Quotes from THE HALF OF IT
Love is simply the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole --Plato, The Symposium
and The Greek Myth
The Ancient Greeks believed humans once had four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces.
We were happy. Complete.
So complete that the gods - fearing our wholeness would quell our need for worship - cleaved us in two, leaving our spilt-selves to wander the earth in misery, forever longing... longing...longing...for the other half of our soul.
It is said that when one half finds its other, there is an unspoken understanding, a unity - and each would know no greater joy than this.
As commented by Ellie
If you ask me, people spend far too much time looking for someone to complete them. How many people find perfect love? Or if they do... make it last? More evidence of Camus' theory that life is irrational and meaningless.
eww, so gloomy a take on life... Maybe, just maybe, it's not that bad.
Loves how Mrs. G chatted with Ellie, one of the few persons who had identified the potentials in the 'dull' Chuchu
Mrs. G.: Six different takes on Plato. Impressive Ellie: Just the one. Mrs. G: Sure, sure, that's what I tell the bartender. Ellie: How come you've never turned me in? Mrs. G.: And have to read the actual essays they'd write?
1st Lover letter to Aster
I sometimes hide behind other people's words. For one thing, those people are published. For another, I know nothing about love. I'm 17. I've lived in Squahamish my whole life. I hang out with my friends. I keep my head down. I'm a simple... guy, which is to say... if I knew what love was, I would quote myself.
so Aster replied
Dear Paul, Did you know it takes eleven muscles to yawn? This the sort of weird fact I find myself recalling to keep myself from... well, yawning... or showing anything that I feel, really. Assuming I know how I feel. So yeah, I turn to other people's words too. Far better than my own. ... people want to give you things but what they really want is to make you like them. Not 'like them' as in 'I like you' but 'like them' as in 'I am like you.' So I'm like a lot of people. which makes me kind of no one.
Then comes the most classic quotes
Ellie: I never really thought about the oppression of fitting in before. The good thing about being different is that no one expects you to be like them
Aster: Doesn't everyone think they're 'different' but pretty much we're all different in the same way...
Ellie: Some of us are more different than others. You might be surprised...
Aster: ... well, you are surprising.
(can't help but recalling the conversation with D, pretty much all about "you and me" in the same continuous cycle of tag questions. D understood... me... certainly he did, and I thought it was true vice versa, but well, no, not really)
What's surprising is: people don't see what they're not looking for. ... the obvious unseen
About the boldest stroke
After one's slaved away at making a "pretty good" painting, the last thing you'd want to do is to make a bold stroke and potentially ruin everything. ... Everything beautiful is ruined eventually. Maybe that's the thing. If you do ruin your painting, you gotta know you have everything in you to get to that "pretty good" painting again. But if you never do the bold stroke, you'll never know if you could have a GREAT painting
What do you like about Aster?
I I don’t know. (now thinking) How her eyes look right into yours... How she twirls her hair when she’s reading. How her laugh busts out like she can’t help herself and she stops being so... PERFECT for just a few moments. How she has at least five different voices. How you could live in an ocean of her thoughts and feel like she knows you, like really KNOWS-- PAUL: I am so stupid. ELLIE: I just mean- PAUL: I am so dumb. A real idiot. ELLIE: I wouldn't-- don't- PAUL: What you just said? That’s what you say when you love someone. ELLIE: No! I was just talking- PAUL: No, it is. And you don’t even care! I love her and I can’t... UGH! ELLIE: You try harder than anyone I've ever met - with the possible exception of my dad with my mom - to show a girl you love them... And if love isn't the effort you put it... then what is it?
Gravity is matter's response to loneliness.
Have you ever loved someone so much that you don't want anything about her to change?
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others...
No... Love isn't pretending... It isn't patient and kind and humble. Love is messy and horrible and selfish and ... Bold. It's not finding your perfect half, It is the trying and reaching and with no promise of success. Love is... being willing to ruin your good painting for a chance at a great one. ... Is it really the boldest stroke you can make?
Some repeating background voice I haven't figuret out yet but may serve well to the theme
(Mrs. G)
We are the source of our own hell.
Hell is other people, John-Paul Sartre, NO EXIT
(always from Father Shanley)
Outside are the dogs, the sorcerers, the immoral persons and everyone who loves and practices lying!
