Quote of the Day

When I was a freshman in high school, I started a book of quotes. Already you can tell I was kind of weird. While everyone else was collecting Jordan's, charm bracelets, boyfriends, hickeys and even a few STD's I collected quotes.

One of my favorite quotes came upon me during a class with one of my favorite English teachers, Mr. P. We were reading Stephen King short stories (i.e. Stand By Me, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, etc..) I came along a quote that was written as the prologue to his story The Body. Normally, I don't read prologues. I like to skip them and get straight to the good stuff. However, for some reason (possibly due to the urging of my teacher Mr. P), I found myself reading the prologue.

In the Prologue, Mr. King talks about what it is like to be at a total loss for words. Basically, what it means to be left speechless. This is only my third post on this blog, and already you might be noticing a theme. There have been few times in my life where someone or something has left me speechless; hence my obsession with photographs and their value being placed at uh thousand words : )

The truth is,I have always had difficulty explaining myself to someone. I'd like to give myself some credit and say that I am a very articulate individual, but when it comes to things that are dear to me like secrets or, I dare say, affairs of the heart, I can never quite find the right words to say what I want to say. I am essentially speechless. This has been an ongoing problem of mine that I doubt will ever go away or be wholly fixed.

Until my Junior year of high school, I had never really been able to put into words why it is so difficult for me, or people like me, to pour out their heart, ideas, fears, hopes, and even dreams to those who are genuinely interested. Mr. King's answer to why verbalizing what is in our hearts to others is difficult is simple. The things we keep locked inside of us, whether it be a secret, a fear, a hope, or a dream, are too important and mean too much to us to even try and put into words. He argues that we are afraid to share our most private aspirations and secrets with people not because we are cowards, but because we fear we will not be understood.

Read on:

"The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out.

But it's more than that, isn't it?

The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it.

That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller, but for want of an understanding ear."

Maybe Moulin Rouge was wrong. To love and be loved in return is wonderful, but to love and be loved by someone who understands you even when you don't understand yourself....that's amazing...just amazing.