She might have been glad to confide all these things to someone. But how to speak about so elusive a malaise, one that keeps changing its shape like the clouds and its direction like the wind? She could find no words; and hence neither occasion nor courage came to hand.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- It is hard to speak about vague emotional pain, and the lack of words prevents seeking help.
- In plain terms
- You cannot find words for your feelings so you stay quiet.
- What can you take from it?
- Difficulty expressing feelings stops you from getting support.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- When have you wanted to speak but couldn't?
Another view
Language can sometimes be found with time or therapy.
More from Gustave Flaubert
It seemed to her that certain portions of the earth must produce happiness -- as thought it were a plant native only to those soils and doomed to languish else…
Permalink to quote #23 But even as they were brought closer together by the details of daily life, she was separated from him by a growing sense of inward detachment. Charles' conver…
Permalink to quote #25 And now she could not bring herself to believe that the uneventful life she was leading was the happiness of which she had dreamed.
Permalink to quote #22
Related quotes
You can't hear me. You can't hear me. You can't hear what I'm saying. You can't hear what I'm saying to you.
Kate BushKate Bush quote #150 It lay buried here. It lay deep inside me. It's so deep I don't think that I can speak about it. It could take me all of my life, But it would only take a mome…
Kate BushKate Bush quote #165 The burden of the incommunicable.
Thomas De QuinceyThomas De Quincey quote #3