Like Being Alone Quotes

I don't mind. I like being alone. ~ Daphne Du Maurier

I like being alone. I have control over my own shit. Therefore, in order to win me over, your presence has to feel better than my solitude. You're not competing with another person, you are competing with my comfort zones. ~ Horacio Jones

Standing out on purpose is one thing, but doing so by default takes a lot of energy and confidence. I'm so proud of the things that set me apart, and I know why they are good; but that doesn't mean it isn't difficult. ... Not because I don't see the value in these things, but because sometimes being different feels a lot like being alone, and being alone is exhausting. ~ Lindsey Stirling

I don't care too much about talking, but I don't like being alone. ~ Ida Lokas

Music was like my first real toy. I was an only child for a while, and I was alone a lot of the time - and I liked it. I still like being alone. ~ Jeff Buckley

It was like being alone without being alone. ~ Kiera Cass, The Crown

I have so many different personalities in me and I still feel lonely. ~ Tori Amos

I actually like being alone. I spend most evenings reading and taking long baths. ~ Shonda Rhimes

Women are interesting, but that isn't the problem, it is that I like being alone, and I'm also touring so much that it's hard to get a relationship to work. ~ Ville Valo

I like being alone and I think this movie, as much as it is an investigation of connection and people bonding, I also think it's just as much about loneliness. ~ Jason Schwartzman

I like being alone when there's no one around. It's a nice freedom to be the only one there, humming and coping, following my impulse. Being by myself in a public place is different, though, and requires a certain sturdiness. It brings in the element of self-consciousness. ~ Jill Frayne

And I find - I'm 63, and my capacity to be by myself and just spend time by myself hasn't diminished any. That's the necessary part of being a writer, you better like being alone. ~ John Irving

There's a tremendous difference between alone and lonely. You could be lonely in a group of people. I like being alone. I like eating by myself. I go home at night and just watch a movie or hang out with my dog. I have to exert myself and really say, oh God, I've got to see my friends 'cause I'm too content being by myself. ~ Drew Barrymore

We come into this world alone. You're going to die alone. That's the way it is.
I think a really great interpretation of love is: feeling alone with someone else.
The times in my life, if you want to qualify as "being in love", when you feel almost like being alone with company. ~ Chris Evans

When I said I wasn't with another girl

the January after we fell in love for the 3rd time,
it's because it wasn't actual sex.
In the February that began our radio silence,
it was actual sex. I hate the tight shirts
that go below your waistline.
Not only do they make you look too young,
but then your torso is a giraffe's neck attached to tiny legs.
I screamed at myself in the subway
for writing poems about you still.
I made a scene. I think about you almost
each morning, and roughly every five days, I still
believe you're there.
I still masturbate to you.
When we got really bad,
I would put another coat of mop water on the floor of the bar
to make sure you were asleep when I got to my side of the bed.
You are the only person to whom I've lied, knowing
I was telling the truth. I miss the way your neck
wraps around my face like a cave we are both lost in.
I remember when you said being with me
is like being alone with company.
My friend Sarah wrote a poem about pink ponies.
I'm scared you're my pink pony.
Hers is dead. It is really sad. You're not dead.
You live in Ohio, or Washington, or Wherever.
You are a shadow my body leaves on other girls.
I have a growing queue of things I know
will make you laugh and I don't know where to put them.
I mourn like you're dead. If you had asked me to stay,
I would not have said no.
I ~ Jon Sands

Let's get going. I don't like being alone out here. The sooner we can blend in with the Imperial population the safer we'll be. It's not hard to cross here," Mari added as they waded through the stream.
"We are fortunate," Alain told her. "It is more difficult downstream."
She felt a shadow cross her mind. "Where that bridge was? Where you almost died?"
"Yes."
"I'm really proud of you for that, but don't do it again. I'm being selfish. I need you." Mari waved one finger at Alain. "Don't be a hero?"
He regarded her impassively. "Even if you need a hero? ~ Jack Campbell

It's a little like being alone on a moving train for the first time. The excitement and wonder at the new experience slowly gives way to the creeping feeling that something isn't quite right. You check your ticket and see that you have made a mistake-- it's not the train that you have intended to be on. At first, you try and deny it. You watch the scenery slipping past and try to find a familiar landmark, and for awhile you take solace in denial.
But soon, the terrifyingly unfamiliar terrain outside the window causes you to panic. Crushing fear that you can't ignore makes you rush around, looking for a way off it. But, it's moving too fast that you know there is no getting off until it stops somewhere. So you creep back to your seat and try not to attract any attention to yourself because the strangers in the train have taken on a weird, plastic appearance. Any camaraderie that you may have shared with them before is gone since you're no longer one of them: you're a trespasser meant to be on a different train.
The knowledge begins to weigh on you as you slide farther and farther from where you wanted to go. You try to reign in on your fear and convince yourself that maybe this new destination will be better than the one you had planned for yourself.
Then, somewhere along the way you discover that all your baggage is wrong, too, and you find that you're ill equipped to survive on the trip you're on, but then... then you notice that the stranger sitting next to y ~ Amy A. Bartol

I am not sure what lonliness is," she said. "If it is not literally being solitary, is it the fear of solitude, of being alone with oneself? I feel no such fear. I like being alone."
"What do you fear then?" he asked her.
She glanced briefly at him and smiled, a fragile expression that spoke for itself even before she found words.
"Never finding myself again ... ~ Mary Balogh

I was a crazy creature with a head full of carnival spangles until I was thirty, and then the only man I ever really cared for stopped waiting and married someone else. So in spite, in anger at myself, I told myself I deserved my: fate for not having married when the best chance was at hand. I started traveling. My luggage was snowed under blizzards of travel stickers. I have been alone in Paris, alone in Vienna, alone in London, and all in all, it is very much like being alone in Green Town, Illinois. It is, in essence, being alone. Oh, you have plenty of time to think, improve your manners, sharpen your conversations. But I sometimes think I could easily trade a verb tense or a curtsy for some company that would stay over for a thirty-year weekend. ~ Ray Bradbury

If you want to be happy, learn to be alone without being lonely. Learn that being alone does not mean being unhappy. The world is full of plenty of interesting and enjoyable things to do and people who can enrich your life. ~ Michael Josephson

I'm fascinated with myself and love hearing the sound of my own voice. I'd like to hear what I have to say. A lot of people don't like being alone because they truly don't like themselves, but I love me. ~ Gene Simmons

Maybe she'll fight better this way. Nothing motivates you like being alone and cornered on the streets. ~ Marie Lu

I didn't like being alone. Being alone was slightly better than having to deal with people, that's all. Or so I'd convinced myself. ~ Lauren Myracle

Elio: This is my spot. All mine. I come here to read. I can't tell you the number of booksI've read here.

Oliver: Do you like being alone?

Elio: No. No one likes being alone. But I've learned how to live with it.

Oliver: Are you always so very wise?

Elio: I'm not wise at all. I told you, I know nothing. I know books, and I know how to string words togethet - it doesn't mean I know how to speak about the things that matter most to me. ~ Andre Aciman

I don't think I'd mind working on a cheese counter. It would leave my mind free to do whatever it wanted - which is nothing in particular, it's true, but I like being alone in my head, I'm used to it. ~ Kate Atkinson

The trouble is not really in being alone, it's being lonely. One can be lonely in the midst of a crowd, don't you think? ~ Christine Feehan

When I meet someone I like being with more than I like being alone, I'll marry her. ~ Emily Giffin

Most Empaths do not like being alone, yet we often crave solitude and need privacy. If ~ Damiana Alder

Being with him was like being alone underwater
everything was slow; nothing counted; I could not be harmed; I would feel dry and cold when I resurfaced. ~ Ben Marcus

Bjarne Møller, my former boss, says people like me always choose the line of most resistance. It's in what he calls our 'accursed nature'. That's why we always end up on our own. I don't know. I like being alone. Perhaps I have grown to like my self-image of being a loner, too....I think you have to find something about yourself that you like in order to survive. Some people say being alone is unsociable and selfish. But you're independent and you don't drag others down with you, if that's the way you're heading. Many people are afraid of being alone. But it made me feel strong, free and invulnerable. ~ Jo Nesbø

I don't like being alone. ~ Cristiano Ronaldo

You know, being single is great! I don't know why we treat it like some disease we are trying to cure with a remedy of 'where is he'. I like being alone. ~ Drew Barrymore

Socializing is more positive than being alone, that's why meetings are so popular. People don't like being alone. That would be, however, an important skill to learn ... ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

I like the idea of being alone. I like the idea of often being alone in all aspects of my life. I like to feel lonely. I like to need things. ~ Robert Plant

Normally, it's one or the other - a pretty, straight woman or a more charactery woman who isn't supposed to be attractive. But women like Tina Fey are leading the charge on being both. You can be funny and attractive. ~ Becki Newton

[Fall, 1951]

To me Acapulco is the detoxicating cure for all the evils of the city: ambition, vanity, quest for success in money, the continuous contagious presence of power-driven, obsessed individuals who want to become known, to be in the limelight, noticed, as if life among millions gave you a desperate illness, a need of rising above the crowd, being noticed, existing individually, singled out from a mass of ants and sheep. It has something to do with the presence of millions of anonymous faces, anonymous people, and the desperate ways of achieving distinction. Here, all this is nonsense. You exist by your smile and your presence. You exist for your joys and your relaxations. You exist in nature. You are part of the glittering sea, and part of the luscious, well-nourished plants, you are wedded to the sun, you are immersed in timelessness, only the present counts, and from the present you extract all the essences which can nourish the senses, and so the nerves are still, the mind is quiet, the nights are lullabies, the days are like gentle ovens in which infinitely wise sculptor's hands re-form the lost contours, the lost sensations of the body. The body comes to life. Quests, pursuits of concrete securities of one kind or another lose all their importance. As you swim, you are washed of all the excrescences of so-called civilization, which includes the incapacity to be happy under any circumstances. ~ Anais Nin

Ten years ago a book appeared in France called D'Une foi l'autre, les conversions a l'Islam en Occident. The authors, both career journalists, carried out extensive interviews with new Muslims in Europe and America. Their conclusions are clear. Almost all educated converts to Islam come in through the door of Islamic spirituality. In the middle ages, the Sufi tariqas were the only effective engine of Islamisation in Muslim minority areas like Central Asia, India, black Africa and Java; and that pattern is maintained today.

Why should this be the case? Well, any new Muslim can tell you the answer. Westerners are in the first instance seeking not a moral path, or a political ideology, or a sense of special identity - these being the three commodities on offer among the established Islamic movements. They lack one thing, and they know it - the spiritual life. Thus, handing the average educated Westerner a book by Sayyid Qutb, for instance, or Mawdudi, is likely to have no effect, and may even provoke a revulsion. But hand him or her a collection of Islamic spiritual poetry, and the reaction will be immediately more positive. It is an extraordinary fact that the best-selling religious poet in modern America is our very own Jalal al-Din Rumi. Despite the immeasurably different time and place of his origin, he outsells every Christian religious poet.

Islam and the New Millennium ~ Abdal Hakim Murad

So you got fired?"
"I quit."
"When I quit the Order, you told me I was besmirched."
"That's because you quit in a huff over some silliness like trying to save people's lives. I quit to maximize my earning potential. Don't you know being a hero is a losing bet? The pay is shit and people hate you for it." Luther looked at Curran. "Who is the male specimen?"
Curran offered Luther his hand. "Lennart."
Luther grabbed Curran's hand and smelled it. "Shapeshifter, feline, probably a lion, but not the run-of-the-mill African Simba. You've got an odd scent about you." He glanced at me. "Why do you always hang out with weirdos? ~ Ilona Andrews

Being famous is just like being in high school. But I'm not interested in being the cheerleader. I'm not interested in being Gwen Stefani. She's the cheerleader, and I'm out in the smoker shed. ~ Courtney Love

Here's a hot tip: Most girls don't like being stalked. ~ Cassandra Clare

We are automata entirely controlled by the forces of the medium being tossed about like corks on the surface of the water, but mistaking the resultant of the impulses from the outside for free will. The movements and other actions we perform are always life preservative and tho seemingly quite independent from one another, we are connected by invisible links ~ Nikola Tesla

People seem to like this image of me being all boho and hippy. It's either that or I'm down on my luck, I've got no money, the work's dried up. ~ Minnie Driver

I really like being pregnant. Not that there aren't things I don't love, but when I think about what my body is doing - creating a child - it just blows my mind. I'm in awe of the process and science. ~ Emily Deschanel

The answer to all questions of life and death, "the absolute solution" was written all over the world he had known: it was like a traveller realising that the wild country he surveys is not an accidental assembly of natural phenomena, but the page in a book where these mountains and forests, and fields, and rivers are disposed in such a way as to form a coherent sentence; the vowel of a lake fusing with the consonant of a sibilant slope; the windings of a road writing its message in a round hand, as clear as that of one's father; trees conversing in dumb-show, making sense to one who has learnt the gestures of their language... Thus the traveller spells the landscape and its sense is disclosed, and likewise, the intricate pattern of human life turns out to be monogrammatic, now quite clear to the inner eye disentangling the interwoven letters. And the word, the meaning which appears is astounding in its simplicity: the greatest surprise being perhaps that in the course of one's earthly existence, with one's brain encompassed by an iron ring, by the close-fitting dream of one's own personality - one had not made by chance that simple mental jerk, which would have set free imprisoned thought and granted it the great understanding. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

The thing that's hard about it - the thing that makes it so hard when the person you love has been taken from you, not by something evil you could have seen coming but by random, pure chance - is that you find yourself suddenly living through a history other than the one you expected to live, through no fault of your own. I feel . . . it's hard to describe, but I feel weirdly outside of time. Ever since the accident I've had these moments when I felt like a visiting guest in this world, not a permanent resident. Like sometimes I look in a mirror and I feel like I can almost see through the version of me on the other side of the glass. And sometimes I feel like I can see the history I used to be in more clearly than the history I'm in now - the real history is one where Philip and Sean and I are all together, being a family and doing whatever family things people do, and this one's like . . . like a fake version of events that I've been yanked into, where everything's gone wrong. ~ Dexter Palmer

There are good kissers and bad kissers. Good kisser: Tony.
Sweet, passionate, and his lips make every nerve in your body stand
up and go, "Hey, what's this? What's going on, and can we make it go
on longer?" And then there are your bad kissers. Case in point: Tyler
Kendrick. My mouth thought it was being attacked by a squid. Big,
freaky tongue forcing its way into my mouth like the villain in a
Western movie coming through the saloon doors with a swagger. Too
much saliva, and in all the wrong places. Honestly, during a kiss your
cheeks should remain relatively dry. ~ Stephen Osborne

He kisses me and for that kiss, for that moment, I forget how worried I am. It comes back, of course, but with Caleb, I feel more whole - I am more whole - than I have been since Mom died.
I love him.
I love him because of who he is, who he really is past what everyone else sees; the lost boy, the druggie, the car thief. I love him because he is strong and caring. I love him because he broke and put himself back together again. I love him because he is beautiful inside and out.
I love him for being here with me. I love him for not telling me that everything will be all right. I love him because he knows what life is like, what it can do, and is always honest about it. ~ Elizabeth Scott

I was not in bad health (aside from a cumulative hangover), I was still on the right side of thirty by a few days, and I was far from being broke. No police were looking for me, nor any husbands, nor any process servers; there was nothing wrong that a slight case of amnesia would not have cured.
But there was winter in my heart and I was looking for the door to summer. If I sound like a man with an acute case of self-pity, you are correct. There must have been well over two billion people on this planet in worse shape than I was. Nevertheless, I was looking for the Door into Summer. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

In fact, the laboratory may be the greatest friend to dumb animals. As science advances, the lives of animals will improve as we depend less and less on their labor and no longer ignore their conditions in order to improve ours. You know, there is much to learn from animals if we are ever to be truly industrial creatures. The beaver is the finest builder of bridges and the silkworm a better weaver than any man or woman. God gave industry perfectly to the caterpillar while we must learn our arts. That is technology--our way to become closer to being like animals. ~ Matthew Pearl

In the nineties, it was all women being blonde and from Sweden. But now it's changed: it's all men looking like Ellen DeGeneres. ~ Pablo Francisco

I had never thought I could love another person this much. I also never thought I'd live in such fear of losing another person. Was this how everyone in love felt? Did they all cling tightly to their beloved and wake up terrified in the middle of the night, afraid of being alone? Was that an inevitable way of life when you loved so deeply? Or was it just those of us who walked on a precipice who lived in such panic? ~ Richelle Mead

I look at being a capitalist businessperson like riding a bike - if I go too slowly, I'll fall over. Or it's kind of like a shark: if I stop swimming, I'll just die. ~ Andrew Mason

BOB DIAMOND: "Being from earth as you are and using as little of your brain as you do, your life has pretty much been devoted to dealing with fear.
DAN MILLER: "It has?"
BOB DIAMOND: "Everybody on earth deals with fear. That's what little brains do."
BOB DIAMOND: "Did you ever have friends whose stomach hurt?"
DAN MILLER: "Every one of them."
BOB DIAMOND: "It's fear. Fear is like a giant fog. It sits on your brain and blocks everything. Real feeling, true happiness, real joy, they can't get through that fog. But you lift it and buddy you're in for the ride of your life."
(From the movie 'Defending Your Life') ~ Alex Pattakos

She loved him for doing things like calling her such a goof. He said it with such warmth and affection, as though her being silly meant something good, instead of how her other boyfriends had felt about it - that being goofy or silly made her a scattered flake who didn't fit into their career plans. ~ Charlotte Stein

Being brave ... is not always being unafraid. Maybe it's more like doing what you know is right even when you're too tired. Or scared. It's going on and doing it anyway ... even when you think you can't take one more step. ~ Bodie Thoene

Most people don't get out of childhood, or adolescence, without being wounded for telling the truth. Someone says 'you can't say that' or 'you shouldn't say that' or 'that wasn't appropriate' so most of us human beings have a very deep underlying conditioning that says that just to be who we are is not OK ... Most human beings have an imprinting that if they're real, if they're honest, somebody's not gonna like it. And they won't be able to control their environment if they tell the truth. ~ Adyashanti

Being on the road is no excuse for having a poor diet. I don't like fast food, but if I have to, I'll order three plain grilled chicken sandwiches and throw out the buns. ~ Triple H

She was the royal princess. She had to start acting like one. She had to stop talking about being trapped, about being handed over from one man to another. She had to start acting.
She had to start being the hero. ~ Liz Braswell

Nothing can exist by itself alone. It has to depend on every other thing. That is called inter-being. [...] There is no being; there is only inter-being. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Waiting for the response to a query is a little like being Schroedinger's cat. You are neither 'dead' nor 'alive', but some amorphous state in between. ~ Pippa Jay

All of the evidence highlights the implicit bargain that is offered to citizens: pose no challenge and you have nothing to worry about. Mind your own business, and support or at least tolerate what we do, and you'll be fine. Put differently, you must refrain from provoking the authority that wields surveillance powers if you wish to be deemed free of wrongdoing. This is a deal that invites passivity, obedience, and conformity. The safest course, the way to ensure being "left alone," is to remain quiet, unthreatening, and compliant. ~ Glenn Greenwald

[Christopher:] You cannot conceive of the quantity of explosives the armies throw at each other for each man killed! The shells make a continuous noise, sometimes like an enormous machine breaking apart. At other times, they come whistling towards you in a thoughtful sort of way and then go crump and the screw cap flies off, hurtling through the air, screaming. There's a kind of shell which comes with a crescendo like an express train, only faster. Another kind which makes a noise like tearing calico, louder and louder. The largest kind are the ones which burst in the sky and make a double crack, like a wet canvas being shaken out by a giant. Such immense explosions to kill such small, weak animals. ~ Tom Stoppard

I had an experience in a restaurant one time where there was a large trolley with beef being carved up, and I just transposed different images onto it. Like, what if there was a nice little cow there with a bowtie and a knife carving up humans. I was a vegetarian for a couple of years after that. ~ Tobe Hooper

Being a breast cancer survivor, as I like to call myself - it will be twenty years next year - I did it to make it possible for women to do regular self breast examinations. It's really important - and, it makes common sense: you know your body better than the doctor does who only sees you once a year, you know? ~ Olivia Newton-John

Do you ride?" The question was out of his mouth before he'd thought.
She glanced at him, surprised by the comment coming out of nowhere, but then she nodded and looked ahead. "I love to ride. I don't get as much opportunity as I'd like what with being in London so much, but whenever I can manage it, I'll get on a horse." Her lips twitched and she glanced up at him. "Preferably one of Demon's."
He grinned. "His are the best."
"Do you have any?"
He nodded. "One definite benefit of being connected to the family."
"I love the exhilaration one gets when pounding along-I think that's what I enjoy the most."
He blinked. Decided hard riding wasn't the best choice of conversational topics. At least not for him. Especially not with her. "What about dancing?"
"I love to waltz. I even enjoy the older forms, the quadrilles and cotillions. They might be less fashionable now, but there's a certain...reined power in them, don't you think?"
"Hmm." Where was an innocent topic when he needed one?
"Have you ever danced the gavotte?"
"Years ago." And he still remembered it. And of course the thought of dancing that particular measure with her, in full flight, instantly filled his mind. ~ Stephanie Laurens

Whenever somebody challenges me with the notion that killing carrots is no different to killing cows, I make a point of pointing out how different they would feel if they spent the day weeding in the garden, or the day slaughtering chickens. Just to make it clear how ridiculous they are being, because there can be no doubt, their argument is ridiculous, there isn't a person out there who given both scenarios would look at them and say "yes they are the same". I like to state this clearly, because I understand that even if the person challenging me refuses to acknowledge the difference, others who come along later and read the conversation will see both sides to the argument and maybe it will help these new people to not start presenting the same kind of ridiculous logic in opposition towards compassionate living. ~ Mango Wodzak

[ ... ] I really like being the sun, exactly what allows clouds to have a silver lining. ~ Matthew Quick

A healthy sweat comes from being passionate and throwing yourself into your workout. And again, it's achieving that intensity. I always like to say 'It's not how long, it's how strong'. ~ Jackie Warner

Fiction builds empathy. Fiction is something you build up from twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks, and you, and you alone, using your imagination, create a world, and people it and look out through other eyes. You're being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you're going to be slightly changed. ~ Neil Gaiman

I don't mind ... the fun and games of being treated like a fragile flower. But as a physiologist working with the unromantic scientific facts of life, I find it hard to delude myself about feminine frailty. ~ Estelle Ramey

I grew up with six brothers, and I'm from Chicago, so princesses and Barbie dolls were not around the house. It was more like sports and comic books, so getting to work for Marvel is like my version of being able to be a princess. ~ Chloe Bennet

And morally, maybe, if there's such a thing as moral exhaustion. There is such a thing, he decides. You start by being idealistic, morally strong if you will, but then the rock of your moral strength is eroded, bit by bit, until you're, well, exhausted, and you do things that you never thought you would. Or you do things that you always feared you would. Or something like that. You'd think that there would be a breaking point - a decisive moment - but there is no single moment or event that you can put your finger on. No, it's not that dramatic - it's the dull, monotonous process of erosion. Maybe ~ Don Winslow

CUSTOM AND MORALITY. To be moral, correct, and virtuous is to be obedient to an old established law and custom. Whether we submit with difficulty or willingly is immaterial, enough that we do so. He is called "good" who, as if naturally, after long precedent, easily and willingly, therefore, does what is right, according to whatever this may be (as, for instance, taking revenge, if to take revenge be considered as right, as amongst the ancient Greeks). He is called good because he is good "for something"; but as goodwill, pity, consideration, moderation, and such like, have come, with the change in manners, to be looked upon as "good for something", as useful, the good natured and helpful have, later on, come to be distinguished specially as "good". (In the beginning other and more important kinds of usefulness stood in the foreground.) To be evil is to be "not moral" (immoral), to be immoral is to be in opposition to tradition, however sensible or stupid it may be; injury to the community (the "neighbour" being understood thereby) has, however, been looked upon by the social laws of all different ages as being eminently the actual "immorality" so that now at the word "evil" we immediately think of voluntary injury to one's neighbour. The fundamental antithesis which has taught man the distinction between moral and immoral, between good and evil, is not the "egoistic" and "unegoistic" but the being bound to the tradition, law, and solution thereof. How the tradition has arise ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

He also didn't like a lock of my hair and said that he couldn't get into the moment without the hair being just right. I quietly knew that he was anxious and that the hairdo wasn't the real issue. But we all let it go and came back to the scene sometime later. ~ Madeleine Stowe

The man was utterly devoid of compassion, love, kindness, or any other trait that marked the spoor of humanity, and so confident in his own superiority that his disdain for every other human being preceded his arrival like the rain-cooled downdrafts before a big storm. ~ Sean J. Quirk

There was no point in fighting with Celia once she got mean," Evelyn says, "If things got too tense, I tended to back off before they came to a head. I would tell her I loved her and I couldn't live without her, and then I'd take my top off, and that usually ended the conversation. For all her posturing, Celia had one thing in common with almost every straight man in America: she wanted nothing more than to get her hands on my chest."

"Did it stick with you, though?" I ask, "Those words?"

"Of course it did. Look, I'd be the first person to say back when I was young that all I was was a nice pair of tits. The only currency I had was my sexuality, and I used it like money. I wasn't well educated when I got to Hollywood, I wasn't book-smart, I wasn't powerful, I wasn't a trained actress. What did I have to be good at other than being beautiful? And taking pride in your beauty is a damning act. Because you allow yourself to believe that the only thing notable about yourself is something with a very short shelf life. ~ Taylor Jenkins Reid

You can't remember sex. You can remember the fact of it, and recall the setting, and even the details, but the sex of the sex cannot be remembered, the substantive truth of it, it is by nature self-erasing, you can remember its anatomy and be left with a judgment as to the degree of your liking of it, but whatever it is as a splurge of being, as a loss, as a charge of the conviction of love stopping your heart like your execution, there is no memory of it in the brain, only the deduction that it happened and that time passed, leaving you with a silhouette that you want to fill in again. ~ E.L. Doctorow