Quotes About Love, Fitting for LTROI

[drakkar]

...That’s one of several reason’s why I (sorry about that) completely agree with Wolfchild on this. We can never say “you are not really in love” or “your love is not a true love” to someone who thinks he or she is in love. What we can do, and this is actually what we usually do, is to say after we see love "gone bad”, well, that was not “true love”. Why? Obvious, because “true love” is eternal and never goes bad. QED.

QFT

And THAT is a possible characteristic of true love that perhaps we can finally all agree on: True love is eternal and never goes bad.

I could live with that. To me, this story is most of all emotional, and every time I use too many words to explain it, the story begins eluding my mind and I feel I'm losing the beauty of it.

[DMt.]

I have to say, Lacenaire, that you are the most sophisticated and intellectually elegant troll I have ever come across.

Your erudition is breathtaking, your analytical intelligence enviable, your imagination second to none, your barbs subtle and well-placed; and yet, strangely, the net effect of your posts is a weariness, and an abstraction from what is otherwise a most compelling and fruitful theme.

I think this is possibly because everyone else here is posting from the heart, or even better from the head-informed heart, whereas you appear to be engaged in a discreetly contemptuous intellectual deconstruction exercise.

[Wolfchild]

I also have argued (against Wolfchild, who I assume was just playing Devil's advocate, but who knows...) that Eli also has more to loose than to gain by taking Oskar along with her. But, of course, all of that is just a matter how we choose to interpret certain ambiguities. However, the fact that was brings Oskar and Eli together is a common interest and common alienation is not a matter of interpretation but clearly a fact, so there is no way of telling if this bond between them will last long in the absence of the factors that brought them together. Personally I see no grounds for being any more sure either way in their case as in the case of Romeo and Juliet.

I feel like a broken record, but I always insist that this is one of the most fascinating questions posed by this film: How much happiness can balance out how much misery? I think that my position has always been that those moments of pure happiness on the train, for each of them, more than balance out both the miseries of the past and whatever miseries are to come. So neither of them lost more than they gained by leaving together. I'm not the Devil's Advocate. I'm Oskar & Eli's Advocate. It doesn't matter whether or not "this bond between them will last long in the absence of the factors that brought them together". Just during the time of the film's story, both of them are better off on the train, no matter what happens afterward.

Also, you are begging the question of whether or not the duration of their relationship would affect it being defined as true love.

[lombano]

Also, you are begging the question of whether or not the duration of their relationship would affect it being defined as true love.

You beat me to it.

[DMt.]

Well, he's got a fucking point there and I hope some of you will eventually wake up, before the whole e-peen-competition now kicks off here, too.

Tape, what does this mean?

[TΛPETRVE]

This means that everyone's points here are equally arguable, and this is not a goddamn ego-endurance contest of some sort.

[Lacenaire]

I feel like a broken record, but I always insist that this is one of the most fascinating questions posed by this film: How much happiness can balance out how much misery? I think that my position has always been that those moments of pure happiness on the train, for each of them, more than balance out both the miseries of the past and whatever miseries are to come. So neither of them lost more than they gained by leaving together. I'm not the Devil's Advocate. I'm Oskar & Eli's Advocate. It doesn't matter whether or not "this bond between them will last long in the absence of the factors that brought them together". Just during the time of the film's story, both of them are better off on the train, no matter what happens afterward.

I am sorry to say that I entirely agree, but my point is quite different. I agree and always did that "those moments of pure happiness on the train, for each of them, more than balance out both the miseries of the past and whatever miseries are to come". But the point is, that clearly when they decide to escape together that can't possibly be thinking of these moments on the train. Rather, they are making the decision based on the desire to be together in an unspecified future. You know, although they are in a film, I don't think we are supposed to assume they know it is a film and there is no future to think about beyond those glorious moments on the train.

Also, you are begging the question of whether or not the duration of their relationship would affect it being defined as true love.

But I never wrote anything of the kind. If I really had thought that "duration" is important to the definition of "true love" would I then agree with Lombano that what matters is the intention to remain together? The only point I was making was that we know no more about what might happen in Eli and Oskar's future than we know about what might have happened to Romeo and Juliet's future has they continued to live. But at the same time, I think that in neither case this matters as far as the nature of the love is concerned. Both of these examples as equally "valid" examples of "true love" and whatever might have happened later is irrelevant. But what is relevant is how they see the future at the time when they they decide to escape. My point about your playing the "Devil's advocate" (and I may well have misunderstood you but I don't think I did) was that at that time I am referring to, you were trying to find all possible reasons why Eli might have had an "ulterior motive" (i.e. not love), in other words you seemed to be backing the "manipulation and exploitation" theory. And if you did that, then clearly this was not your "true" opinion which is what being the Devil's advocate means. (Specifically, I am referring to the discussion where I wrote that Oskar would be a burden for Eli and she could easily find someone better suited to doing her killing for her, and you were arguing that Oskar could still be useful in other ways etc). In any case, this is clearly quite a different issue that the one we are discussing here.

I am afraid I have to insist on the fact that we actually agree here, however much vertigo and other unpleasantness this might cause.

[a_contemplative_life]

So much for little quotes about love, like "A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world." Oh well. Time to start some other post!

[gattoparde59]

If the film does not give us a definite answer, we can be certain that is does pose the question: "What is love?"

[genie47]

It is futile most of the time because it mostly isn't real. If I can dig up the post I made on true love, when we say "we love chocolate", we actually mean we love the taste of chocolate. So in most circumstances, when we say we love someone, it is to imply we love them because we receive something of desire from them. It might be sex, it might be self respect, it is all the things love is not. We think it is love. We think therefore we write and it turns out to be nothing.

The real stuff is an experience. In the film and the novel, we see Oskar and Eli experience love. They didn't say they love each other. They didn't even say they like each other. Oskar most evidently wants to be with Eli, forever. He didn't even speak of any reason to be with Eli. In the novel, Eli didn't want to move away. It is a mysterious experience.

I don't see much accounting for empathy in this, but I might be wrong. Human beings are needy creatures, they can't live as islands, otherwise neither Oskar and Eli would have a problem and they would have no need of each other. All people need to be loved and to feel as though they are loved. I am not talking about sex, or pride either. Children need to be loved. Old people in nursing homes need love. Most of all Oskar and Eli are desperately in need of love, that is the whole point of the story isn't it? Emotionally, how can we understand this thing that people need, unless we feel that need ourselves. You are really describing moral and ethical categories, which is all nice and good, but there has to be reason "to do the right thing."

I refer back to my quote in this thread. not so much to be loved but to love. Of course we need to be loved but we should watch ourselves.