On some level we trade passion for security, that's trading one illusion for another. It's a matter of degree. We can't live in constant fear, but we can't live without any. The fear of loss is essential to love.
Esther PerelSuccess, to me, is helping one person or many people counter the isolation and pseudoconnectivity of our lives by boosting their ability to connect to themselves and to others.
Esther PerelIn my community there were two groups of people, There were the ones who did not die and the ones who came back to life.
Esther PerelWhen we seek the gaze of another, it isn't always our partner we're turning away from, but the person we have ourselves become.
Esther PerelPeople grow up learning to be silent about their sexuality, so where are they going to learn to talk about it when they are in a relationship? Shame, guilt, ignorance, reservation, prudishness, all kinds of different cultural systems and social stereotypes shroud sexuality in secrecy and in silence. And there's the romantic notion. "If I say in the beginning, that I am missing something, you are instantly going to think that means you are not enough."
Esther Perel