Quotes from Esther Perel

'When I look at my partner radiant and confident,' — [that's] probably the biggest turn-on across the board.

Today, we turn to one person to provide what an entire village once did: a sense of grounding, meaning, and continuity. At the same time, we expect our committed relationships to be romantic as well as emotionally and sexually fulfilling. Is it any wonder that so many relationships crumble under the weight of it all?

Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness.

Love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure, and commitment offers one of the great luxuries of life: time. Marriage is not the end of romance, it is the beginning.

Our partner's sexuality does not belong to us. It isn't just for and about us, and we should not assume that it rightfully falls within our jurisdiction.

Everyone should cultivate a secret garden.

Beginnings are always ripe with possibilities, for they hold the promise of completion. Through love we imagine a new way of being. You see me as I've never seen myself. You airbrush my imperfections, and I like what you see. With you, and through you, I will become that which I long to be. I will become whole. Being chosen by the one you chose is one of the glories of falling in love. It generates a feeling of intense personal importance. I matter. You confirm my significance.

The quality of your life ultimately depends on the quality of your relationships . . . which are basically a reflection of your sense of decency, your ability to think of others, your generosity.

It's hard to feel attracted to someone who has abandoned her sense of autonomy.

Trouble looms when monogamy is no longer a free expression of loyalty but a form of enforced compliance.

We're walking contradictions, seeking safety and predictability on one hand and thriving on diversity on the other.

Eroticism thrives in the space between the self and the other.

We expect one person to give us what once an entire village used to provide, and we live twice as long.

It's hard to experience desire when you're weighted down by concern.

Love is at once an affirmation and a transcendence of who we are.

We no longer plow the land together; today we talk. We have come to glorify verbal communication. I speak; therefore I am. We naively believe that the essence of who we are is most accurately conveyed through words.

Our partners do not belong to us; they are only on loan, with an option to renew—or not. Knowing that we can lose them does not have to undermine commitment; rather, it mandates an active engagement that long-term couples often lose. The realization that our loved ones are forever elusive should jolt us out of complacency, in the most positive sense.

Monogamy, it follows, is the sacred cow of the romantic ideal, for it is the marker of our specialness: I have been chosen and others renounced. When you turn your back on other loves, you confirm my uniqueness; when your hand or mind wanders, my importance is shattered. Conversely, if I no longer feel special, my own hands and mind tingle with curiosity. The disillusioned are prone to roam. Might someone else restore my significance

Love is an exercise in selective perception

The more we trust, the farther we are able to venture.

The shift from shame to guilt is crucial. Shame is a state of of self-absorption, while guilt is an emphatic, relational response, inspired by the hurt you have caused another.

Monogamy used to mean one person for life. Now monogamy means one person at a time.

Like dreams and works of art, fantasies are far more than what they appear to be on the surface. They're complex psychic creations whose symbolic content mustn't be translated into literal intent. "Think poetry, not prose

It takes two people to create a pattern, but only one to change it.