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About this quote

What does it mean?
Miller compares seeing with love to trying to recall the smell of roses in a cellar.
In plain terms
Love is like a perfume you remember but cannot fully capture.
What can you take from it?
Love is felt deeply but hard to define or recall exactly.

Where it applies

  • literary essays
  • romantic reflections
  • play analysis

Putting it to work

  • cherish sensory details
  • accept memory limits

Questions to consider

  • How do you remember love?
  • What senses does love engage for you?

Another view

This metaphor relies on abstract sensory experiences that vary by person.

More from Arthur Miller

  1. I am bewildered by the death of love. And my responsibility for it.

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  2. I think it's a mistake to ever look for hope outside of one's self. One day the house smells of fresh bread, the next of smoke and blood. One day you faint bec…

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  3. Where choice begins, Paradise ends, innocence ends, for what is Paradise but the absence of any need to choose this action?

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