How we cite our quotes: (Part.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
What follows is in its essence as well as in its contour a love story. I mean that it is deeply as well as superficially so. Man's creative struggle, his search for wisdom and truth, is a love story. (Editor's Foreword: par. 2)
According to P. Loxias, the mysterious editor of The Black Prince, Bradley Pearson's narrative would be a love story even if its contents didn't include anything like the experience of romantic love. What makes the narrative a love story, in P. Loxias's view, is Bradley's quest to achieve artistic beauty and truth.
Quote #2
Every artist is an unhappy lover. And unhappy lovers want to tell their story. (Editor's Foreword: par. 3)
Since P. Loxias believes that "[m]an's creative struggle, his search for wisdom and truth, is a love story" (Editor's Foreword: par. 2), we should take that into account as we consider his argument that "[e]very artist is an unhappy lover." P. Loxias isn't necessarily saying that all art is born out of romantic tension and unhappiness; instead, he's suggesting that all artists struggle to fulfill the true object of their desire, which is to meet their own ideals of artistic excellence.
Quote #3
My mother was very important to me. I loved her, but always with a kind of anguish. I feared loss and death to an extent I think unusual in a child. Later I sensed with profound distress the hopeless lack of understanding which existed between my parents. They could not 'see' each other at all. (1.9.1)
Although The Black Prince focuses mainly on Bradley Pearson's experiences of romantic love and artistic longing, familial love plays an important role in the novel, too. Bradley's complicated feelings for his mother, father, and sister help to shape who he is as a person, and his parents' marriage helps to establish a pattern that Bradley repeats in his own life.