she kept sliding down, in small half-willing surrenders, till she was a heap, with the book held tiringly above her face.

He wanted pure compliments, just as he wanted unconditional love.

To apologize for what you most wanted to do, to concede that it was obnoxious, boring, 'vulgar and unsafe' --- that was the worst thing.

I was rather a goody-goody as a child... It was only later on I discovered that you could be naughty and get away with it.

What the problem was was this colossal redundancy, the squandering of brilliant technique on cheap material.

The worse they are the more they see beauty in each other.

Now that I had actually made love, more astonishingly now that I had been made love to, the fantasies were subtly undermined.