Quotes About Desire

The mammalian brain's functions include what researchers call the "four F's": fighting, feeding, feeling and ... reproductive behavior.

Was there a version of "The Seducer's Diary" where they were equal—where he wasn't tricking her into doing something she didn't want? Or was that what seduction was?

I wondered if Ivan was asleep. It was terrible to think that he was in this city, possibly very nearby, but I couldn't see him or talk to him because he didn't love me. I couldn't be with him for one minute, not even for the weird leftover hours that nobody else wanted, like from one to three a.m. on a Wednesday.

When he leaned in to kiss me, it was like sliding back into the water on one of those long days at the beach, where you just get out so you can go back in again.

People said you had to be careful whom you lost your virginity to, because you would become attached, you would want to do it again, you would never get over it. Indeed, even though it had been one of the most painful experiences of my life, still what I felt toward him was something like gratitude, and a feeling of submission that was hard to differentiate from desire—because you had to submit to something.

An amazing sight, someone you're infatuated with trying to fish something out of a jeans pocket.

He'd learned that when you love someone purely enough, all you wanted was for that person to be happy. (p. 419)

If everyone slept with the person he or she had secretly fallen in love with, the world would be chaos.

She wanted to unzip her body and step out of it. She wanted to be attached to a machine that would erase her memory, obliterate her guilt, wipe her clean.

Then Phoebe came to the underlined verses. My life with you has been beyond beyond/And there's nothing beyond it I'm seeking/I wouldn't mind being dead/If I could still be with you.

She loved him, and she knew he loved her, but come on—if everyone slept with the person he or she had secretly fallen in love with, the world would be chaos.

Lust is great in the bedroom, but Like is better at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

There is nothing more mysterious, confounding, and unknowable, than the desires of the human heart.

He was too busy attacking the buffet table- tenderloin, crab claws, gravlax, mushrooms, cherrystones on the half shell. He held one out to Adrienne. "Eat this," he said. "No, thanks." "Come on." "I'm not hungry." "Not hungry?" he said. He piled his plate with Chinese spare ribs. "This food is incredible.

Sex is ephemeral. Once it's over, it's over. Sex is not a lasting connection; it's only real while it's happening. It's not love.

Maia's favorite. Her mother and grandmother loved her because they had to. Huck loves her because he wants to.

There is nothing more mysterious, confounding, and unknowable, Eleanor thinks, than the desires of the human heart.

Don't you think everyone deserves to find love?" Link asks. "Isn't that what we're all programmed to search for? Someone we can connect with—a lover, a friend—someone to build a life with?

She wants to stay right here, with all of those sumptuous plans still in front of her, forever.

Cloudstreet, by Tim Winton; Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison; White Fur, by Jardine Libaire; and—oh, baby—Adultery and Other Choices, by Andre Dubus, who might be the writer Vivi loves most.

in that place men found themselves in when they needed bolstering? His sweet and pretty wife wasn't enough? His two healthy kids weren't enough? He needed more, he needed someone to worship him, someone to think he was a hero?

Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze.

She looked like green rhubarb juice, and he had the expression of 'Damn!' all over him.

Egli voleva conoscere che cos'era quello che stava distruggendo; il vecchio e il vivo, e dal basso, tra i cani, guardava l'uomo nudo davanti a sé. [...] Sembrava che volesse tutto di quell'uomo sotto i suoi colpi. Non che per lui fosse uno sconosciuto. Che fosse davvero una vita. O voleva soltanto una ripresa, e riscaldar l'aria di nuovo.