TS Elliot quote, what does it mean?

Question

what does this quote mean? where is it from?

TS ELLIOT: It's strange that words are so inadequate. Yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath, so the lover must struggle for words

Answer 1

Words cannot convey the totality of the feeling of Love for another person.

But, like fighting for air, it is both necessary and difficult to do.

Eliot is saying that words are how we communicate our feelings to other people - but that certain things are beyond words.

I would paraphrase it like this:

You really cannot fully understand the feeling of Love, unless you have felt it yourself. But, since I can't magically cause you to have such an experience, the best that I can do is search for the words that do the best job of describing it. Bear in mind, though, that using words to convey such a profound feeling is like trying to draw the Sistene Chapel with an Etch-a-Sketch.

Answer 2

Just like someone who is asthmatic has a hard time trying to breathe someone in love has a hard time coming up with the words to tell their lover how they feel about them or what they mean to them.

Answer 3

Words are inadequate to experience, and yet they are all we have to approach the capture of that experience.

Unspoken here is something that has been lost in much contemporary poetry -- the experience must contain within it the necessity of being expressed. The struggle to find the words to express it carries value only in that necessity.

Answer 4

It means that words can never fully express love. Even the most competent of people can't find the words to describe love.

Answer 5

There is tonnes of air but an asmatic cannot breathe

Breathing and falling in love are involuntary

There are millions of words but a tongue tied lover cannot express herself.

The result is frustration

Answer 6

It means that one cannot always describe their feelings in words when they love someone.....its a struggle and no words quite convey the feeling.

Answer 7

It means that words are as necessary as air.

Xan Shui,
Philosophic Philanthropist, Honest Man

Answer 8

True emotion is impossible to describe with words.
But someone in love tries so hard regardless.

Answer 9

hmm just as
people with asthma have a hard time breathing
same
people in relationships have a hard time saying what they mean

Answer 10

it means that words are never enough to describe how we truely feel