Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
The speaker feels pain not from loss, but from realizing the connection was never mutual.
In plain terms
Pain comes from realizing you never really belonged to the other person.
What can you take from it?
Unrequited attachment feels like a loss that never happened.

Where it applies

  • realizing unrequited love
  • ending a one-sided relationship

Putting it to work

  • accepting relationship boundaries

Questions to consider

  • When did you realize a connection was one-sided?

Another view

It simplifies complex grief into a single realization.

More from Orson Scott Card

  1. I trust you because I've come to know you, and coming to know you, I've learned to love you. I've fallen in love with your boldness, your humility, your innoce…

    Permalink to quote #568
  2. As long as no one said anything, he could pretend that it was love. That she felt about him as he felt about her

    Permalink to quote #570
  3. He was close to her hour after hour, the smell of her, the touch of her breath on the hairs of his arms or on his ears as she leaned over his shoulder to watch…

    Permalink to quote #567

Related quotes

  1. All for myself the sigh would swell, The tear of anguish start; I little knew what wilder woe Had filled the Poet's heart. I did not know the nights of gloom, …

    Anne BronteAnne Bronte quote #1
  2. I've got tears in my ears from lyin' on my back In my bed while I cry over you. And the tears in my ears, they're off the beaten track Since you said 'It's goo…

    Harold BarlowHarold Barlow quote #1
  3. Hearts can break. Yes. Hearts can break. Sometimes I think it would be better if we died when they did, but we don't.

    Stephen KingStephen King quote #6