Rogue Rouge

On Red and Love

 (excerpts)

 

 "Only a few months into our marriage, we started marking off areas in the apartment as 'Nothing Places', in which one could be assured of complete privacy, we agreed that we would never look at the marked-off zones, that they would be nonexistent territories in the apartment in which one could temporarily cease to exist, the first was in the bedroom, by the foot of the bed, we marked it off in red tape on the carpet, and it was just large enough to stand in, it was a good place to disappear … it was a rule that you never would look at that rectangle of space, it didn't exist, and while you were in it, neither did you ..."
 — Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)

"When I was your age, my grandfather bought me a ruby bracelet. It was too big for me and would slide up and down my arm. It was almost a necklace. He later told me that he had asked the jeweler to make it that way. Its size was supposed to be a symbol of his love. More rubies, more love. But I could not wear it comfortably. I could not wear it at all. So here is the point of everything I have been trying to say. If I were to give a bracelet to you, now, I would measure your wrist twice"
— Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)

(And on a related note: )

"If there is no love in the world, we will make a new world, and we will give it walls, and we will furnish it with soft, red interiors, from the inside out, and give it a knocker that resonates like a diamond falling to a jeweller's felt so that we should never hear it. Love me, because love doesn't exist, and I have tried everything that does."
— Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated: A Novel)