How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Sure I loved her. But it wasn't that I wanted to touch her" (1.35).
Joe loves Holly in a way that doesn't require sex. He loves her without it being about a physical relationship. He loves her just for her.
Quote #2
"You can love somebody without it being like that. You keep them a stranger, a stranger who's a friend" (1.35).
This is yet another iteration of love from Joe and it reveals the possibility of loving someone who we never really know. Holly is not a stranger to Joe in the literal sense, but she's a stranger in the sense that he doesn't know much about her. Even so, he can still love her from afar. He can still love her as one friend would another.
Quote #3
"Of course he was never my lover; as far as that goes, I never knew him until he was already in jail. But I adore him now, after all I've been going to see him every Thursday for seven months, and I think I'd go even if he didn't pay me" (3.40).
Holly doesn't love Sally in the traditional sense, but she has come to feel great affection for the man over the past seven months of their relationship. Her love for him is like a granddaughter for her grandfather. She adores him more than anything else.
Quote #4
She sighed and picked up her knitting. "I must be madly in love. You saw us together. Do you think I'm madly in love?" (5.18).
Mag's love for José is not something she's confident in or sure about. She needs reassurance from Holly that she's actually in love, which tells us that maybe she doesn't really love José after all. Is true love something we have to convince ourselves of?
Quote #5
"Doc really loves me, you know. And I love him. He may have looked old and tacky to you. But you don't know the sweetness if him, the confidence he can give to birds and brats and fragile things like that. Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot" (10.3).
Holly's love for Doc is pretty complicated. On the one hand, it's kind of selfish on Holly's part because Doc makes her feel better about herself. But she's also very giving, in a way, because she feels indebted to Doc for all he's done for her. This love is about the give and take between a couple.
Quote #6
For I was in love with her. Just as I'd once been in love with my mother's elderly colored cook and a postman who let me follow him on his rounds and a whole family named McKendrick. That category of love generates jealousy, too (11.1).
The narrator's love for Holly is hard to pin down. He likens it to the other times in his life when he has felt great affection for people who were kind to him. But he also admits to feeling jealous when it comes to Holly, and this suggests there's indeed something more than affection going on. He is in love with her – he doesn't just love her.
Quote #7
I wish, please don't laugh – but I wish I'd been a virgin for him, for José (12.3).
This is an interesting statement coming from Holly since she seems so indifferent to what people consider acceptable. But she reveals herself to be a bit of a traditionalist here. And she also exposes the desire to change part of her past in order to please the man she loves, which is very unlike her.
Quote #8
"A person ought to be able to marry men or women or – listen, if you came to me and said you wanted to hitch up with Man o' War, I'd respect your feeling. No, I'm serious. Love should be allowed. I'm all for it" (12.3).
Holly believes in love without restrictions or rules. She truly feels that everyone should be free to pursue the love that makes them happy.
Quote #9
I loved her enough to forget myself, my self-pitying despairs, and be content that something she thought happy was going to happen (13.18).
The narrator's love for Holly reaches the point where it's no longer about his happiness – it becomes about her happiness even more. He finds contentment in the thought that she'll finally find security and stability.
Quote #10
"But oh gee, golly goddamn," she said, jamming a fist into her mouth like a bawling baby, "I did love him. The rat" (17.13).
Love can also mean pain. Holly finally let her guard down, finally let herself fall in love with someone. But when José leaves her, the loss of his love thrusts her right back into her old life and her former ways.