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We dismiss people whose faces show no sign of an inner life and lump them with the hundreds we fail to notice each day. Yet beneath each dull surface a caged mind may be whirling alone. A little curiosity is all it takes to find treasures we never expected.
We treat knowing and judging another person as the easiest thing in the world. So we draw our final conclusions from a first meeting and happily dismiss people on that basis. The mistake is in treating a first glimpse as the whole person.
Men's sense of being owed by women rarely needs words. It shows in how they look, smile, raise a hand, and carry an unearned confidence. Meanwhile women are left the duty to bow down, obey, and give whatever is asked.
A person can feel they have always known a stranger because she matches a figure built from childhood dreams and books. The longing comes before the real person and attaches to an image of her. That makes it easy to love the picture instead of the person standing there.
The pain of losing something precious fades with time. A chance we let slip never fades, because it keeps coming back as the life we might have had. Each time it returns, it hurts again.
A woman who is frank and commanding 'like a man' and a man who is gentle enough to be told he should have been born a girl can find themselves in each other. Their bond works because both refuse the roles society hands them. The book's lasting appeal comes partly from this refusal.
A woman can hold a deeply romantic soul and a combative insistence on her own freedom at the same time. She may refuse love precisely because she will not accept the obedience that usually comes with it. Readers have prized this mix of romance and resistance most of all.