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About this quote

What does it mean?
A person is described as desperately needing affection, comparing her state to a fish out of water.
In plain terms
She needs love badly like a fish needs water to live.
What can you take from it?
Humans have basic emotional needs similar to physical survival needs.

Where it applies

  • loneliness
  • dating
  • emotional neglect

Putting it to work

  • meet emotional needs
  • seek connection
  • recognize desperation

Questions to consider

  • What do you need to feel alive?
  • How does love sustain you?

Another view

Not all emotional need equates to life-threatening desperation.

More from Gustave Flaubert

  1. Nevertheless the flames did die down -- whether exhausted from lack of supplies or choked by excessive feeding. Little by little, love was quenched by absence;…

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  2. 'What an unutterable catastrophe!' The apothecary always had the proper expression ready, whatever the occasion.

    Permalink to quote #45
  3. There was a silence. They looked at each other; and their thoughts clung together in their common anguish like two throbbing hearts.

    Permalink to quote #42

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