It sometimes seemed to him that for love to work, it had to be fair, that he should tell only half the joke, and she the other half. Otherwise, it would not be love, but something completely else—pity or entertainment, or stand-up comedy.

Tao Lin
About This Quote

This quote was written by Joyce Carol Oates in an essay about her father, who was a lifelong loner. Her father, Alvin Oates, would only ever speak to one person at a time, and he would always decline to do favors for anyone else in the family. When he did talk to someone else, he would only tell half the joke or half of the story. This is not uncommon when people are dealing with emotional pain.

If you have just suffered a terrible loss or have been through something very difficult then you may not be able to process the information that someone has told you. Instead of processing this new information, you may just want to stop hearing it.

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  2. You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching, Love like you'll never be hurt, Sing like there's nobody listening, And live like it's heaven on earth. - William W. Purkey
  3. You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams. - Dr. Seuss
  4. A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you. - Elbert Hubbard
  5. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. - Unknown
More Quotes By Tao Lin
  1. There was an enjoyment to being alive, he felt, that because of an underlying meaninglessness—like how a person alone for too long cannot feel comfortable when with others; cannot neglect that underlying the feeling of belongingness is the certainty, really, of loneliness, and nothingness, and...
  2. Loneliness can fly a helicopter through a cut-out shapeof a helicopter the same size as the helicopterand that's it's only skilland it isn't good enoughbut it's still amazing.
  3. It sometimes seemed to him that for love to work, it had to be fair, that he should tell only half the joke, and she the other half. Otherwise, it would not be love, but something completely else—pity or entertainment, or stand-up comedy.
  4. Matt would stare at Andrew for 10 minutes. It's depressing that people are different. Everyone should be one person, who should then kill itself in hand-to-hand combat.
  5. Sad things are beautiful only from a distancetherefore you just want to get away from themfrom a distance of one hundred and thirty years. ...i'm going to distance myself until the world is beautiful
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