love

When asked why his books never had a love story, Ken Vonnegut said that because once you put a love story in a novel, it overshadows everything else in it. You can have the most amazing plot, but once you put the element of love, the love becomes the most important thing. I thought about this while watching Sam Peckinpah's "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" the other day. The movie is about revenge, money, the hipocrisy of religion. It also touches on the end of the Old West. But then there's the love angle, on the relationship between Hogue (Jason Robards) and Hellie (Stella Stevens) and everything else becomes secondary.
Love conquers everything, especially in art.