Saturday, May 3, 2014

Jeanette Winterson on Love

Jeanette Winterson was kindly asked to define love. Here are her impressions: 

St. John of the Cross: “In the evening of life, we shall be judged on love alone.” 

W. H. Auden: “Let no one say I Love until aware / What huge resources it will take to nurse / One ruining speck, one tiny hair / That casts a shadow through the universe.” 

Freud: “Men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved.” 

From 19th-century novels, that love and money are fatally bartered as interchangeable currencies. 

From poetry, that love is a language that has to be learned. 

From the Bible, that love is as strong as death. 

From my novel “Written on the Body”: “Why is the measure of love loss?”

But 20 years later I discovered that love could be as reliable as the sun. And that there is one other thing in a world infatuated by wealth. Love never counts the cost.

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