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About this quote

What does it mean?
Emotional pain is mistaken for physical pain, revealing inner turmoil.
In plain terms
She feels a sting in her heart instead of a bug.
What can you take from it?
Emotional pain feels like physical injury.

Where it applies

  • emotional distress
  • misreading pain
  • family scenes

Putting it to work

  • fiction
  • therapy
  • writing

Questions to consider

  • Where do you feel pain?
  • How does the express itself?

Another view

It relies on metaphor that might not fit all cultures.

More from Gabriel Garcia Marquez

  1. 'A person doesn't die when he should but when he can.' (p. 241)

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  2. The anxiety of falling in love could not find repose except in bed. (p. 269)

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  3. At dawn, worn out by the tormented vigil, he appeared in the cell an hour before the execution. 'The farce is over, old friend,' he said to Colonel Gerineldo M…

    Permalink to quote #16

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