“There are some men who are consoled by the idea that there are women less attractive than their wives; and others who are haunted by the knowledge that there are more attractive.”
Source: The French Lieutenant's Woman
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John Fowles 120
British writer 1926–2005Related quotes

From "The deep end", interview by Nick Kent, The Face (March 1990).
In interviews etc., About love

Essay 16: "Flirting with Success", p. 61
Naked Beneath My Clothes (1992)

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 190.

“There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement.”
Section 181
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)
Context: There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day: we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life. Moreover, when we have an alibi for not writing a book, painting a picture, and so on, we have an alibi for not writing the greatest book and not painting the greatest picture. Small wonder that the effort expended and the punishment endured in obtaining a good alibi often exceed the effort and grief requisite for the attainment of a most marked achievement.

(p. 149)
The Ape that Thought It Was a Peacock: Does Evolutionary Psychology Exaggerate Human Sex Differences? (2013)

Source: What is Property? (1840), Ch.V

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 79.