“Only the united beat of sex and heart together can create ecstasy.”

“He was now in that state of fire that she loved. She wanted to be burnt.”

“There is a perfection in everything that cannot be owned.”

“He was jealous of her future, and she of his past.”

“Sex loses all its power and magic when it becomes explicit, mechanical, overdone, when it becomes a mechanistic obsession. It becomes a bore. You have taught us more than anyone I know how wrong it...”

“And in his eyes he had the look of the cat who inspires a desire to caress but loves no one, who never feels he must respond to the impulses he arouses.”

“When someone loves you, the way they talk about you is different. You feel safe and comfortable.”

“If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

“sex is the consolation you have when you can't have love”

“Don't get your panties in such a twist... and give me back mine.”

“Listen, I'm bossy. I can't help it. It's who I am and what I do. I'm pushy and I like to take over. But I'm going to work really hard not to do so much and your going to try and accept me the way I...”

“Possess. Have. Hold. Enjoy. Control. Dominate. Pick your verb, Ms. Fairchild. I intend to explore so very many of them.”

“Sex can be used either for self-affirmation or for self-transcendence either to intensify the ego and consolidate the social persona by some kind of conspicuous embarkation and heroic conquest, or...”

“He didn't know all that much about how the machinery worked anyway. Such knowledge was for specialists. In war, as in love, he was a fearless, happy-go-lucky adventurer.”

“If she did experience sex--or something close to it--in high school, I'm sure it would have been less out of sexual desire or love than literary curiosity.”