Quote collection
520 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"There are books which we read early in life, which sink into our consciousness and seem to disappear without leaving a trace. And then one day we find, in some summing-up of our life and put attitudes towards experience, that their influence has been enormous."
"If a person continues to see only giants, it means he is still seeing the world through the eyes of a child. I have a feeling that man's fear of woman comes from having first seen her as the mother, creator of men."
"Love men and women not for their strength but their softness, not for their fullness but their hunger, not for their plenty but their need."
"Luxury is not a necessity to me, but beautiful and good things are."
"I don't mind working, holding my ground intellectually, artistically; but as a woman, oh, God, as a woman I want to be dominated"
"We are cruel when someone refuses to play the role in which we have cast him. We judge a person only according to his relationship towards us."
"A war regarded as inevitable or even probable, and therefore much prepared for, has a very good chance of eventually being fought."
"The source of sexual power is curiosity, passion. You are watching its little flame die of asphyxiation."
"There are two ways to reach me: by way of kisses or by way of the imagination. But there is a hierarchy: the kisses alone don't work."
"Don't say anything, because I see that you understand me, and I am afraid of your understanding. I have such a fear of finding another like myself, and such a desire to find one! I am so utterly lonely, but I also have such a fear that my isolation be broken through, and I no longer be the head and ruler of my universe. I am in great terror of your understanding by which you penetrate into my world; and then I stand revealed and I have to share my kingdom with you."
"We love best those who are, or act for us, a self we do not wish to be or act out."
"I sleep with my feet on moss carpets, my branches in the cotton of the clouds."
"The two men who have done the greatest harm to the world are Christ and Columbus. Christ taught us guilt and sacrifice, to live only in the other world, and Columbus discovered America and materialism."
"When one is pretending the entire body revolts."
"Every individual is representative of the whole . . . and should be intimately understood, and this would give a far greater understanding of mass movements and sociology."
"Introspection is a devouring monster. You have to feed it with much material, much experience, many people, many places, many loves, many creations, and then it ceases feeding on you."
"I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go."
"Now that I am moving, I am afraid. Where am I going?"
"The same chemicals were used in the cooking as were used on the composition of her own being: only those which caused the most violent reaction, contradiction, and teasing, the refusal to answer questions but the love of putting them, and all the strong spices of human relationship which bore a relation to black pepper, paprika, soybean sauce, ketchup and red peppers."
"When I am most deeply rooted, I feel the wildest desire to uproot myself."