quote · Legacy record
A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partnersdo not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gayand swift and free, like a country dance of Mozart’s. To touch heavily would be to arrest the patternand freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. There is no placehere for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand; only the barest touch in passing. Nowarm in arm, now face to face, now back to back—it does not matter which. Because they know theyare partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished byit.
A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partnersdo not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gayand swift and free, like a country dance of Mozart’s. To touch heavily would be to arrest the patternand freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. There is no placehere for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand; only the barest touch in passing. Nowarm in arm, now face to face, now back to back—it does not matter which. Because they know theyare partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished byit.
Approximate author period: c. 1953 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1953 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1906 to 2001; Wikidata Q443096, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q443096 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 179989; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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