Quotes about sex
page 7

“Money is like sex. It seems much more important when you don't have any…”

Hollywood (1989)

“Subconsciously he knew too, that the oriental woman is not a sensualist in the European sense; there is nothing mawkish in her constitution. Her true obsessions are power, politics and possessions - however much she might deny it. The sex ticks on in the mind, but its motions are warmed by the kinetic brutalities of money.”

Lawrence Durrell The Alexandria Quartet

Source: The Alexandria Quartet (1957–1960), Mountolive (1958), X

Money, Sense

“Earlier the films were given an 'A' certificate simply because they had lots of violence and horror, but nowadays there are a lot of sex and double-meaning dialogues. The themes become so predominantly vulgar and we can't possibly edit out a film's theme. So how do we re-censor these films to make them U or U/A?”

Pahlaj Nihalani

On implementing a new policy under which A-rated film cannot be recut and released for television, as quoted in " Shocker! Adult Films Won't Be Re-Censored For TV! http://www.9xe.com/3574" 9xe (9 July 2015)

“If GML was an infant, SGML is the bright youngster who far exceeds expectations and made its parents too proud, but XML is the drug-addicted gang member who had committed his first murder before he had sex, which was rape.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: S-exp vs XML, HTML, LaTeX (was: Why lisp is growing) http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/9a30c508201627ee (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Parent

“Generally speaking, an Indian university must regard itself as one of the living organs of national reconstruction. It must discover the best means of blending together both the spiritual and the material aspects of life. It must equip its alumni irrespective of caste, creed or sex, with individual fitness, not for its own sake, not for merely adorning varied occupations and professions, but in order to teach them how to merge their individuality in the common cause of advancing the progress and prosperity of their motherland and upholding the highest traditions of human civilisation.”

Syama Prasad Mookerjee (1901–1953) Indian politician

Speech delivered at Nagpur University Convocation on 5th December 1936.

Life, Universe

“Indians have sex more often in their brains and not where it should be. Sex is an elemental passion. It's an integral part of our life. All human relationship is based on the desire to have sex. It's human to have desire for sex and when it is not fulfilled, it comes out in *******ed forms. That is why celibacy does not work. The desire to have multiple partners is also normal. Married people commit adultery in their mind - happy married life is a façade. I have a collection of sex jokes, which I hope will be published posthumously.”

Khushwant Singh (1915–2014) Indian novelist and journalist

Khushwant Singh in Sikh Philosophy Network

Life, Happiness, People, Hope

“On same-sex marriage It’s a question of human rights, gender equality and equality.”

Alexander Stubb (1968) Finnish politician

Source: Majority of party leaders would support gay marriage http://yle.fi/uutiset/majority_of_party_leaders_would_support_gay_marriage/7654727, Yle.fi, 27 November 2014.

Marriage, Question

“When only men could register to vote, we required only men to register for the draft. Today both sexes can vote, but only men must register for the draft.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 132.

Men

“Sex is rearing its interesting head.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Sixth Column

Source: Sixth Column (1949; originally serialized in 1941), Chapter 7 (p. 83)

“addiction to female beauty and sex;”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part IV: Where do we go from here

Beauty

“The idea that women are the choosier sex is one of the best-known claims associated with EP [evolutionary psychology]. Ironically, another of the best-known claims associated with EP is an exception to this rule: On average, men are choosier than women when it comes to the physical attractiveness of a prospective mate. Even if we put this counterexample aside, though, the statement “females are choosier than males,” although true of many species, does not apply easily to our own. It is true that men may sometimes be more willing than women to lower their standards for a casual sexual partner. However, when it comes to the most important mating decisions of a man’s life — who he will marry, who he will have children with — the difference in choosiness is much smaller and maybe nonexistent. This fact of human life is even implicit in everyday folk psychology; the stereotype is that men will “sleep with anything that moves,” not that they will marry or have children with anything that moves. In long-term, committed relationships, men are about as choosy as women.”

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

Source: The Ape that Thought It Was a Peacock: Does Evolutionary Psychology Exaggerate Human Sex Differences? (2013), p. 157

Life, Women, Men, Children

“Everything reminds Milton of the money supply. Well, everything reminds me of sex, but I keep it out of the paper.”

Robert Solow (1924) American economist

Remark of 1966, quoted in "Who Was Milton Friedman?" http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2007/feb/15/who-was-milton-friedman/, by Paul Krugman, in The New York Review of Books (15 February 2007)

Money

“Over the past thirty years, we have replaced the medical-political persecution of illegal sex users ("perverts" and "psychopaths") with the even more ferocious medical-political persecution of illegal drug users.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Source: The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement (1997), p. xi.

Past

“The distinction between central and peripheral claims is applicable to many aspects of human sexuality. Consider, for instance, the emotion of jealousy. Evolutionary psychologists place a strong emphasis on sex differences in this domain. The standard claim is that men are more worried by a partner’s sexual infidelity than emotional infidelity, whereas women are more worried by a partner’s emotional infidelity… [However] the overwhelming trend is that most men and most women are extremely upset by both sexual and emotional infidelity. This suggests that the central EP claim regarding jealousy should be “Human beings evolved to experience jealousy in romantic relationships” rather than “Men and women evolved different patterns of jealousy.” The latter statement is true but should be considered a qualification to the former: a peripheral rather than a central claim. To stress the sex difference alone would be like observing that male elephants are bigger than females while steadfastly neglecting to mention that all adult elephants are large compared to most terrestrial animals. It would almost certainly foster an inaccurate view.”

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

(pp. 266-267)
The Ape that Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2013)

Women, Men, Jealousy, Strong

“We—"the free love generation"—are now telling our children to abstain from sex? When I spoke at Carleton College, I told the young people: "Unless they were a virgin on their wedding day, anyone who preaches abstinence to you is a hypocrite." Two weeks later, Ann Coulter showed up at the same school, and one of the students raised his hand and asked her whether she'd been a virgin! It made the papers—and made me laugh. You know what Coulter did? Attacked the kid and changed the subject.”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

Source: Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (2008), Ch. 1 (p. 3)

Love, Children, People, School

“Communism as an ideology had been passionately committed to women's equality and liberation, in every sense including the erotic, in spite of Lenin's own dislike of casual sexual promiscuity. (However, both Krupskaya and Lenin were among the rare revolutionaries who specifically favored the sharing of housework between the sexes)…Yet, with rather rare exceptions…they were not prominent in the first political ranks of their parties, or indeed at all, and in the new communist-governed states they became even less visible. Indeed, women in leading political functions virtually disappeared…When women streamed into a profession opened to them, as in the U. S. S. R., where the medical profession became largely feminized in consequence, it lost status and income. As against Western feminists, most married Soviet women, long used to a lifetime of paid work, dreamed of the luxury of staying at home and doing only one job…whatever the achievements and failures of the socialist world, it did not generate specifically feminist movements, and could indeed hardly have done so, given the virtual impossibility of any political initiatives not sponsored by state and party before the mid-1980s”

Eric Hobsbawm book The Age of Extremes

The Age of Extremes (1992)

Women, World, Dreams, Home

“No move towards the extinction of the passion between the sexes has taken place in the five or six thousand years that the world has existed.”

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) British political economist

Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter XI, paragraph 1, lines 6-8

World, Passion

“To the delight of millions of little children, the Santa in New York's great parade will be half of a same-sex couple. And guess who the other half will be? Me! Harvey Fierstein, nice Jewish boy from Bensonhurst, dressed in holiday finery portraying the one and only Mrs. Claus.”

Harvey Fierstein (1954) actor from the United States

Quoted in Mark J. Terrill, "'Hairspray' drag queen to play Mrs. Claus at Macy's parade," http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-11-27-parade-mrs-claus_x.htm Associated Press (2003-11-27)

Children, Boy, Holiday

“All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman.”

Catharine A. MacKinnon (1946) American feminist and legal activist

The allegation that Catharine MacKinnon equated sex with rape, or suggested that all sex is hostile, seems to have been first made in the October 1986 issue of Playboy. Catharine MacKinnon has denied ever saying anything of the kind. http://www.snopes.com/quotes/mackinno.htm Instead MacKinnon asserts that rape and intercourse are "difficult to distinguish" (1983), and that "the major distinction between intercourse (normal) and rape (abnormal) is that the normal happens so often that one cannot get anyone to see anything wrong with it" (1989). Misattributed

“G. I. Gurdjieff's sexual life was strange in its unpredictability. At certain times he led a strict, almost ascetic life, having no relation with women at all. At other times, his sex life seemed to go wild and it must be said that his unbridled periods were more frequent than the ascetic. At times, he had sexual relationships not only with almost any woman who happened to come within the sphere of his influence, but also with his own pupils. Quite a number of his women pupils bore him children and some of them remained closely connected with him all their lives. Others were just as close to him, as far as one could tell, without a sexual relationship.”

John G. Bennett (1897–1974) British mathematician and author

John G. Bennett Gurdjieff: Making a New World (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), pp. 231-232: Cited in " Sexual Beliefs and Practices http://gurdjiefffourthway.org/pdf/sexual.pdf" on gurdjiefffourthway.org, accessed 2013-04-21

Life, Women, Children, Time

“It [this book] is, very simply, an account of how three primitive societies have grouped their social attitudes towards temperament about the very obvious facts of sex-difference.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1930s, Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935), p. xvi

Books

“Did you hear about the high school football coach who got in trouble for letting his players have sex with his wife? How does that work? "Robinson! Get in there!"”

Larry the Cable Guy (1963) American stand-up comedian, actor, country music artist, voice artist

Tailgate Party (2009)

School, Football

“There is no such thing as love at first sight, Bryan. There’s only sex at first sight.”

Julian May book The Many-Colored Land

The Many-Colored Land, chap. 9, p. 59

Love

“It must be said at the outset that the field of mental illness has always been debatable ground. Who is sane, who isn't, and who is qualified to judge? Standards have fluctuated wildly, and abuses have been numerous. In the last century, in the United States, a wife could be committed to an asylum on the say-so of her husband and two easily-paid-off doctors alone, and there are cases on record of wives who were "put away" for holding theological opinions that differed from those of the husband, or for refusing to have as much sex as he would like.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Ophelia Has a Lot to Answer For (1997)

“Both sexes allow men dentists inside our mouths, but, well, have you ever let a man who is a dental hygienist inside your mouth? The man must earn his way to our private places in a way not required of a woman--he must become the doctor or the dentist, or forget it.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 181.

Men, Way, Forgetting

“Jane Whitney: You go way beyond sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll in your performances: you self-mutilate on stage.”

GG Allin (1956–1993) American singer-songwriter

On The Jane Whitney Show

Way

“Helene Lange throughout her life insisted that the dissimiliarity of the sexes must be emphasized in order that the feminine nature be freely developed and properly formed. Only then might this nature achieve its own cultural fulfillment, an achievement indeed necessary in our time as a suitable compensation for the obvious effects of our masculine Western culture; then feminine nature might be capable of authentic human formation and an activity of helping love.”

Edith Stein (1891–1942) Jewish-German nun, theologian and philosopher

Essays on Woman (1996), Problems of Women's Education (1932)

Love, Life, Nature, Time

“Worship of society and popular opinion is idolatry. The soul has no sex, no country, no place, no time.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Soul, Time, Country

“I'd have sex with a number of the Muppets. I just don't talk about it publicly. It's private. Although a hint is, that there was a character in Elmo in Grouchland who was called "My Lady" and that's all I'll say.”

Mandy Patinkin (1952) American actor and tenor singer

Kansan.com (the University of Kansas Daily), "A conversation with Mandy Patinkin" http://www.kansan.com/stories/2005/apr/07/jayplay_features_mandy_qanda/ (2005-04-07)

“Sex is the refuge of the mindless. And the more mindless the woman, the more deeply embedded in the male "culture," in short, the nicer she is, the more sexual she is. The nicest women in our "society" are raving sex maniacs.”

Valerie Solanas (1936–1988) American radical feminist and writer. Attempted to assassinate Andy Warhol.

Source: SCUM MANIFESTO (1967), p. 12.

Women

“Provision of condoms also sends the message that sex between prisoners is OK - yet abstinence is part and parcel of a prison sentence.”

Stewart Leggett (1944) Australian politician

HIV/AIDS - Hepatitis B Inquiry (Part II): Dissenting Statement by Mr Stewart Leggett MP (1997)

Parting

“Most women’s ideal is to not be sexual until nine conditions are met: physical attraction; respect; emotional compatibility; intelligence; singleness; success (or potential ); being asked out; being paid for; and the man risking rejection by initiating the first kiss…. Men want sex as long as only one condition is met—physical attraction.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 13.

Women, Men, Intelligence, Kiss

“His wicked sense of humour suggests exciting sex
His fingers focus on her
Her touches
He's Venus as a Boy!”

Björk (1965) Icelandic singer-songwriter

"Venus as a Boy", from the CD single Venus as a Boy (1993)
Songs

Boy, Sense

“Literary people of the opposite sex do not really love each other. All they really desire is to read their manuscript aloud to a receptive listener.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Source: A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard (1911), p. 11.

Love, People, Reading

“Whenever a man and a woman come to words or blows, fools are quick to attribute it to the differences between the sexes. The sexes differ much less than they wish to believe, and such differences as are real tend less to promote strife than to prevent it.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Volume 2, Ch. 23
Fiction, The Book of the Short Sun (1999–2001)

Fools

“Victory [over homophobia] may require five or maybe 20 years. Yet I have no doubt that "don't ask, don't tell" and same-sex adoption bans will be as unspeakable and inexplicable to my grandchildren as counting a slave as three-fifths of a human being.”

Jacob M. Appel (1973) American author, bioethicist, physician, lawyer and social critic

"Reparations for Gay Americans," http://freep.com/article/20090407/OPINION05/90407048 The Detroit Free Press (2009-04-07)

Victory

“You are being dishonest if you are not writing about sex in your book. It is very natural and normal. Well, I have earned the name of 'dirty old man' but there is not much sex in my books. What I have written is very serious stuff - biography, history, religious texts, etc.”

Khushwant Singh (1915–2014) Indian novelist and journalist

Khushwant Singh in Sikh Philosophy Network

Books, History, Nature

“Dubya has nominated another caveman for a federal appeals court. Refreshingly, the Democratic Party is organizing opposition.
The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, "prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia" also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally — but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.
Some rules might be called for when these acts directly affect other people's interests. For incest, contraception could be mandatory to avoid risk of inbreeding. For prostitution, a license should be required to ensure prostitutes get regular medical check-ups, and they should have training and support in insisting on use of condoms. This will be an advance in public health, compared with the situation today.
For necrophilia, it might be necessary to ask the next of kin for permission if the decedent's will did not authorize it. Necrophilia would be my second choice for what should be done with my corpse, the first being scientific or medical use. Once my dead body is no longer of any use to me, it may as well be of some use to someone. Besides, I often enjoy rhinophytonecrophilia”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

nasal sex with dead plants Stallman archives (28 June 2003) https://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html 2000s

People, Health, Quotes, Support

“There's no redder rag for our modern, progressive Catholics than a certain religious approach to sex and Eros ranging from suspicion to open condemnation and branded accordingly as Manichean, neo-Platonic, Puritan, etc. Quite unacceptable. And yet in these quite obviously heretical speculations there's a barb which, even at first encounter, penetrated to the depths of my mind as the startling confirmation of something always known, and this ferment keeps on working - all the time…the idea which one finds in so many apocryphal trends of thought, i. e. that there's definitely something wrong with sex in its present form, that is, during this terrestrial aeon - something that is not sex in itself, as a whole, but some trait or quality.. Something which does not belong to original human nature, but which owes its actual existence to The Fall; in the same sense unnatural as death is unnatural and yet taken for granted, an inevitable, undeniable factor - in this fallen world.”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

Broken Lights p15-16 Diaries 1951.

Death, World, Idea, Nature

“Absolutely, because during sex, I’m just going to run a filmstrip. I’m still masturbating.”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

In answer to the question, "Masturbation for you is as good as sex?"
The Playboy interview (2010)

“Women have two orgasms, the real ones and the ones they make up on their own. And I can give you the male point of view on this, which is: we're fine with it. You do whatever you have to do, and we'll do whatever we have to…. To a man, sex is like a car accident anyway, and trying to determine a female orgasm is like asking, "What did you see after the car went out of control?" "Well, there were a lot of screeching noises, I was facing the wrong way at one point, and in the end, my body was thrown clear."”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

I'm Telling You for the Last Time (1998)

Women, Cars, Way

“Both sexes work on their lines before they appear onstage. His lines are a lifetime of work; her introductory 'line' is her appearance--or her lack of lines. Just as careers give men power, so beauty gives women power. But just as the comparison between herself and the most beautiful women makes a woman feel powerless, so the comparison between himself and the most successful men makes a man feel powerless.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 106.

Women, Men, Beauty, Feeling

“Biology is usually a lot more fun than physics. It's a lot easier to understand, and there's sex.”

Alexander Rosenberg (1946) American philosopher

The Atheist's Guide to Reality (2011)

Understanding

“…after careful observation of our own children and their playmates at the toddler stage, that you will see in the nursery every crime in the book except sexual assault: GBH, attempted murder, theft, blackmail, extortion, lying, fraud, false pretence, menacing, putting in fear, robbery with violence, conspiracy, mayhem - the whole Newgate Calendar is on show, and if sex and high treason are exceptions it is only because the little blighters haven't got round to them yet.”

George MacDonald Fraser (1925–2008) English-born author of Scottish descent

Crime and Punishment. p. 154-155.
The Light's On At Signpost (2002)

Children, Books, Fear, Lying

“Having been issued the false prospectus of happiness through unlimited sex, modern man concludes, when he is not happy with his life, that his sex has not been unlimited enough. If welfare does not eliminate squalor, we need more welfare; if sex does not bring happiness, we need more sex.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

All Sex, All the Time.
City Journal (1998 - 2008)

Life, Happiness, Falseness

“When the government grants preferences on the basis of race, it teaches the people that discrimination is acceptable. Our laws must reflect the principle that the government discrimination on the basis of race or sex is not to be tolerated. Americans look to our government to exemplify what is right and just. So long as the federal government recognizes people as unequal under the law, we cannot achieve the fundamental truth the American people already know: we are all entitled to equal protection of the law. This legislation will ensure that the federal government leads the way in respecting this basic American principle.”

Charles T. Canady (1954) American politician and judge

The Civil Rights Act of 1997 http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/the-civil-rights-act-of-1997 (December 1, 1997)

People, Truth, Law, Way

“Being part of a team that belongs to everyone makes me feel good and at peace with myself. A lot of the time, it's better than sex: it lasts longer and if it all falls flat, it can't just be your fault.”

Andrea Pirlo (1979) Italian footballer

Ibid [p. 37]

Peace, Feeling, Time, Parting

“The self-awareness that grows out of the habit of witnessing is nonjudgmental. I look at my actions, my feelings, my experience with soft and compassionate eyes, from a great distance as if I were God or a novelist. The chief rule of the witness is: Judge not. Do not identify with or against anything you observe. The witness must be amoral, a pure phenomenologist. The courtroom of civil conscience must be closed for a time. There is a time when the outlaw switches from contemplation to trans-moral action. But in order to stop the reactionary patterns of thought and behavior that make up the personality, there must be a prior time of inaction. As I gain skill as an objective and compassionate witness, my identity gradually shifts from my persona to my self. In place of the old compulsive, preprogrammed reactions, I find a growing ability to pause between the stimulus and the response. I cease being merely a biological creature who reacts automatically to steak and potatoes, the lure of immediate sex, or the invasion of my territory; I deliberate and choose what is most desirable. I am no longer captive either to my impulses or to the judgments made upon me by my society. In the newfound silence, I find the freedom to disengage from my old self-images and addictions.”

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Source: The Passionate Life (1983), p. 137

God, Behavior, Feeling, Freedom

“Translation:I have spend a long time thinking, the arbitrators who holds the power calling others cheap, I don't see how elegant they are, for example, it is cheap to go for a $100 prostitute, but to spend one million on a show girl(singers or actress) is elegant, looking at porno is cheap, reading Red Head documents(all Communist documents have red color heading) is elegant, it is cheap to buy a replica gun, it is elegant to gun down two men in one go, it is cheap to play World of Warcraft, it is elegant to have sex with fashion models…”

Han Han (1982) Chinese writer and racing driver

From Han Han's blog: Beginning from today, I shall be a cheap man. 从今天起，做一个低俗的人 http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4701280b0100gnj4.html

Men, World, Color, Girl

“The New Women! I could barely recognize them as being of the same sex as myself…They are satiated by everything, hungry for nothing. They are what I wanted to be; they are what I worked for them to be: and now I see them, I hate them.”

Fay Weldon (1931) English author, essayist and playwright

Praxis (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1978) p. 9.

Women, Hate

“I think right about now I should answer some questions that are probably on your mind. You're probably thinking to yourself, 'Janeane, why are you not wearing the half-shirt that you're usually so fond of wearing? Because when we see you we like to see the half shirt.' You know I'm very fond of that and I'm fond of the low-slung jean and the thong, as you know. In fact when I go into a bar and I see ladies wearing the low-slung jeans and the half-shirts, I go up to them and say, 'On behalf of everyone here, thank you. Thank you!' 'Hey, pretty lady, are you wearing a thong? What a creative way to create favor with the opposite sex. That is so exciting. Let me understand the dynamic of the thong: so there's just a slender thread that just resides in your nether region for the better part of the day - just a string that rides in your anatomical hinterlands… it just hangs in there all day at work and then all day at the bar, so I can see how the gentlemen find that so exciting.'… Don't 'ooh' me, I'm not the one with the thong!”

Janeane Garofalo (1964) comedian, actress, political activist, writer

standup performance accessible through .WAV files available on the Internet
Standup routines

Way, Understanding, Question, Thinking

“(Camille Keaton) was very nice, but I remember, when we talked to each other, she behaved like a verginella, a little virgin, you know, always avoiding sex in conversation. She did sex movies, you say?”

Donald O'Brien (actor) (1930–2003) Italian film and TV actor

Euro Trash Cinema magazine interview (March 1996)

“The problem is not to discover in oneself the truth of one's sex, but, rather, to use one's sexuality henceforth to arrive at a multiplicity of relationships. And, no doubt, homosexuality is not a form of desire but something desirable. Therefore, we have to work at becoming homosexuals.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

"Friendship as a Way of Life," interview in Gai pied, April 1981, as translated in Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth (1994), pp. 135-136

Truth, Problem

“One of the great things about liberalism is that it allows for more paths for just that pursuit. In tribal society, there was little to no division of labor beyond what was rooted in age and sex. In feudal monarchies and modern totalitarianisms alike, there is division of labor, but it is imposed on people by rulers: “You will be a soldier.” “You will be a fry cook.” “You were born to be a slave or a serf.” In a free society, you have choice. It’s not perfect: You can’t choose to be a Marine if you do not meet the requirements, but you are free to try.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

2010s, 2018, A Free People Must Be Virtuous (2018)

People, Age, Perfection, Cooking

“In explaining things to people, I've come to terms with the fact that a lot of my goals are very Christian in the end. Because people no longer appreciate the taboos of sex, drugs, and rock & roll. I have to take them as far as they've ever been taken before, on a grand scale, in order for the world to realize we have to start over. It's very much like the mythology of the bible, the end of the world, and the antichrist and people are made to make a choice about their faith. I think certain elements of that are correct.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

As quoted in CMJ (January 1997).
1990s

People, World, Faith, Thinking

“Most human lives are forgotten after four generations. We build our splendid houses on the edge of the abyss then distract and dazzle ourselves with entertainers and sex while we slowly at first, then more rapidly, spin around the ever-thirsty plughole in the middle. My treasured possessions -- all the silly little mementoes and toys and special books I’ve carried with me for decades -- will wind up on flea market tables or rot on garbage heaps. Someone else will inhabit the rooms that were mine. Everything that was important to me will mean nothing to the countless generations that follow our own. In the grand sprawl of it all, I have no significance at all. I don’t believe a giant gaseous pensioner will reward or censure me when my body stops working and I don’t believe individual consciousness survives for long after brain death so I lack the consolations of religion. I wanted Annihilator to peek into that implacable moment where everything we are comes to an end so I had to follow the Black Brick Road all the way down and seriously consider the abject pointlessness of all human endeavours. I found these contemplations thrilling and I was drawn to research pure nihilism, which led me to Ray Brassier’s Nihil Unbound and back to Ligotti. I have a fundamentally optimistic and positive view of human existence and the future and I think it’s important to face intelligent, well-argued challenges to that view on a regular basis. While I agree with Ligotti that the universe is, on the face of it, a blind emergent process, driven by chance over billions of years of trial and error to ultimately produce creatures capable of little more than flamboyant expressions of the agonizing awareness of their own imminent deaths, I don’t share his slightly huffy disappointment at this state of affairs. If the universe is intrinsically meaningless, if the mindless re-arrangement of atomic debris into temporarily arising then dissipating forms has no point, I can only ask, why do I see meaning everywhere, why can I find a point in everything? Why do other human beings like me seem to see meaning in everything too? If the sun is only an apocalyptic series of hydrogen fusion reactions, why does it look like an angel and inspire poetry? Why does the flesh and fur-covered bone and jelly of my cat’s face melt my heart? Is all that surging, roaring incandescent meaning inside me, or is it out there? “Meaning” to me is equivalent to “Magic.” The more significance we bring to things, even to the smallest and least important things, the more special, the more “magical” they seem to become. For all that materialistic science and existential philosophy tells us we live in a chaotic, meaningless universe, the evidence of my senses and the accounts of other human beings seem to indicate that, in fact, the whole universe and everything in it explodes second-to-second with beauty, horror, grandeur and significance when and wherever it comes into contact with consciousness. Therefore, it’s completely down to us to revel in our ability to make meaning, or not. Ligotti, like many extreme Buddhist philosophers, starts from the position that life is an agonizing, heartbreaking grave-bound veil of tears. This seems to be a somewhat hyperbolic view of human life; as far as I can see most of us round here muddle through ignoring death until it comes in close and life’s mostly all right with just enough significant episodes of sheer joy and connection and just enough sh-tty episodes of pain or fear. The notion that the whole span of our lives is no more than some dreadful rehearsal for hell may resonate with the deeply sensitive among us but by and large life is pretty okay generally for most of us. And for some, especially in the developed countries, “okay” equals luxurious. To focus on the moments of pain and fear we all experience and then to pretend they represent the totality of our conscious experience seems to me a little effete and indulgent. Most people don’t get to be born at all, ever. To see in that radiant impossibility only pointlessness, to see our experience as malignantly useless, as Ligotti does, seems to me a bit camp.”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

2014
http://www.blastr.com/2014-9-12/grant-morrisons-big-talk-getting-deep-writer-annihilator-multiversity
On life

Life, Death, Pain, People

“Marital sex is kinda like ordering a Civil War chess set through the mail. You get one piece every four to six weeks, you don't know what kind of shape that piece is gonna be in when you get it, but you still gotta pay the handling charges.”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

Blue Collar Comedy Tour, Blue Collar Comedy Tour Rides Again (2004)

War

“Senators leap up and bray for the Death Penalty with inflexible authority of virus yen… Death for dope fiends, death for sex queens (I mean friends) death for the psychopath who offends the cowed and graceless flesh with broken animal innocence of lithe movements. The black wind of death undulates over the land, feeling, smelling for the crime of separate life, movers of the fear-frozen flesh shivering under a vast probability curve… Populations blocks disappear in a checker game of genocide… Any number can play…”

William S. Burroughs book Naked Lunch

Atrophied Preface
Naked Lunch (1959)

Life, Death, Fear, Penalty

“Since, though I do not repent my amorous exploits, I am far from wanting my example to contribute to the corruption of the fair sex, which deserves our homage for so many reasons, I hope that my observations will foster prudence in fathers and mothers and thus at least deserve their esteem.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

History of My Life (trans. Trask 1967), 1997 reprint, v. 8, chapter 4, p. 110
Referenced

Hope

“It is only when it takes the form of physical addiction that sex is evil. It is also evil when it manifests itself as a way of satisfying the lust for power or the climber's craving for position and social distinction.”

Aldous Huxley book Ends and Means

Ends and Means (1937)

Way, Evil

“I did all my real growing up in France, which I was almost not allowed to do at home. They liked my voice, they found me sexy, they didn't know anything about my childhood. In England, you’d come on to a bright cheerful song, do a bit of comedy, finish on a big ballad and wear a sparkly dress. That was about it. Suddenly I saw people like Aznavour and Piaf, songs coming from your heart, your soul, your guts, your sex, whatever, songs about everything, life and death, love and hate, wow! I realised you can use all of you when you perform.”

Petula Clark (1932) British actress and singer

Calgary Herald, 14 Feb 2013

Love, Life, Death, Hate

“A very distinguished colleague began his criticism of this show by asking what is Mr Astaire's secret. May I suggest that the solution hangs on a little word of three letters? Mr Astaire's secret is that of the late Rudolph Valentino and of Mr Maurice Chevalier — sex, but sex so bejewelled and be-pixied that the weaker vessels who fall for it can pretend that it isn't sex at all but a sublimated projection of the Little Fellow with the Knuckles in His Eyes. You'd have thought by the look of the first night foyer that it was Mothering Thursday, since every woman in the place was urgent to take to her bosom this waif with the sad eyes and the twinkling feet.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Theatre critic James Agate in a review of a 1933 London performance of Gay Divorce as quoted in Cooke, Alistair. "Fred Astaire Obituary", Letter From America, BBC World Service, June 28, 1987.

Secret, Sadness, Night

“Viewers of television, for instance, aren't aware of their own physical vulnerabilities. They get used, manipulated by images of depersonalized sex.”

Vanna Bonta book Flight: A Quantum Fiction Novel

Source: Flight: A Quantum Fiction Novel (1995), Ch. 32

“The prosecutors say that Mr. Strauss-Kahn "forced" the complainant to have oral and other sex with him. How? Did he have a gun? Did he have a knife? He's a short fat old man.”

Ben Stein (1944) actor, writer, commentator, lawyer, teacher, humorist

Presumed Innocent, Anyone?
The American Spectator
2011-05-17
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/05/17/presumed-innocent-anyone
2011-06-07, quoted in * La Cage Aux Fools
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
2011-05-19
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-may-19-2011/la-cage-aux-fools
2011-06-07
regarding the May 2011 arrest of IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn for attempted rape of a hotel housekeeper

“Women have been discouraged from genres such as sculpture that require studio training or expensive materials. But in philosophy, mathematics, and poetry, the only materials are pen and paper. Male conspiracy cannot explain all female failures. I am convinced that, even without restrictions, there still would have been no female Pascal, Milton, or Kant. Genius is not checked by social obstacles: it will overcome. Men's egotism, so disgusting in the talentless, is the source of their greatness as a sex. […] Even now, with all vocations open, I marvel at the rarity of the woman driven by artistic or intellectual obsession, that self-mutilating derangement of social relationship which, in its alternate forms of crime and ideation, is the disgrace and glory of the human species.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 653

Women, Men, Mathematics, Failure

“We are programmed to find sex pleasurable for one simple reason—because animals who mate have offspring. Those who do not mate have none. Traits that result in successful reproduction get reinforced and passed on. Evolution is that simple.
It is therefore useless to bemoan as evil the fact that men tend toward aggression. Among our ancestors, aggression often helped males have more offspring than their competitors. “Good” and “evil” had little to do with it.
That is, until we reached consciousness, at which point, good and evil became pertinent indeed! Behaviors which might be excusable in dumb beasts can seem perverted, criminal, when performed by thinking beings. Just because a trait is “natural” does not oblige us to keep it.”

David Brin book Glory Season

Introduction to Chapter 7 (pp. 105-106)
Glory Season (1993)

Men, Pleasure, Behavior, Nature

“Human forms are perpetuated through sex, and sex also perpetuates human consciousness.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Source: Zero Gravity interview (2006), p. 75

“There must be a co-education of the different social classes as well as of the two sexes. I might have founded a school giving lessons gratuitously; but a school for poor children only would not be a rational school, since, if they were not taught submission and credulity as in the old type of school, they would have been strongly disposed to rebel, and would instinctively cherish sentiments of hatred.”

Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia (1859–1909) Spanish anarchist

The Origin and Ideals of the Modern School (1908)

Children, Education, School

“As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even from some external influence…On the other hand, as regards human nature in general, woman is not misbegotten, but is included in nature's intention as directed to the work of generation. Now the general intention of nature depends on God, Who is the universal Author of nature. Therefore, in producing nature, God formed not only the male but also the female.”

Thomas Aquinas book Summa Theologica

I, q. 92, art. 1, ad 1
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)

God, Nature, Universe, Dependency

“Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't. Nobody ever thought that that's what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws. You don't need a constitution to keep things up-to-date. All you need is a legislature and a ballot box.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

" The Originalist https://ww2.callawyer.com/clstory.cfm?pubdt=NaN&eid=913358&evid=1", California Lawyer (January 2011). 2010s

Law, Box

“Anna’s reaction is more complex than you might imagine, and it’s at such a moment you appreciate the woman in the writer-director’s chair. Women, I suspect, are more likely than men to view sex from the over-all perspective of what we may call their lives. In a country like Saudi Arabia, whose citizens express discomfort about men and women even attending movies together, I have little doubt which gender is more concerned.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/humpday-2009 of Humpday (22 July 2009) Reviews, Three-and-a-half star reviews

Women, Men, Imagination, Country

“Sex and politics - sex and politicians. I never understand how any politician gets a shag, really. Can you? A classic example: the David Mellor sex scandal. I bet you're the same as me. We're not shocked by these scandals involving politicians. I bet when that happened, your response was not 'Good God, that's outrageous! A man in his job, he should be running the country, not messing about like this; no wonder we're in a state; terrible!' No, that wasn't the response. You open the paper, you read about that, and you go 'Ha ha ha ha - I don't think so, Dave! I don't think so. In your dreams, perhaps.' The interesting person in that relationship is not him; it's her - Antonia. A woman of mystery; a mystery woman. Antonia de Sancha, always described as an 'unemployed actress'. Unemployed actress? How's she an unemployed actress? God! if you can feign sexual interest in David Mellor, I should think Chekhov's a piece of piss. So, she thinks 'I'm an actress. It's a role. I'll prepare'. She gets to the bedroom situation. He's in a kit-off situation, and there's Antonia giving it 'Red lorry, yellow lorry - Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper'. But the hair - that's the main unattractive thing. What barber told him that suited him? Someone winding him up there. 'Yes, David, that'll suit you, mate: a greasy, oily flap of dirty-looking patent leather, wafting about down one side of your moosh; that'll drive those unemployed actresses mental!' (Linda Live, 1993)”

Linda Smith (1958–2006) comedian

Stand-up

God, Dreams, Understanding, Thinking

“You cannot over estimate how infantile men are about sex! Men are people that have sex BECAUSE they have a headache… or are on fire, or have been shot in the head, or whatever it is!”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

On men.
Monster (2004)

Men, People

“It was so much like having sex with the wind. It complicated things and blew away and softly separated and slid back around him. The wire was about pain too: it would always be there, jutting into his feet, the weight of the bar, the dryness of the throat, the throb of his arms, but the joy was losing the pain so that it no longer mattered. So too with his breathing. He wanted his breath to enter the wire so that he was nothing. This sense of losing himself. Every nerve. Every cuticle. He hit it on the towers. The logic became unfixed. It was the point where there was no time. The wind was blowing and his body could have experienced it years in advance.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Let the Great World Spin (2009), The Ringing Grooves of Change

Pain, Sense, Time, Joy

“Men’s immediate path from the Insanity Track to the Sanity Track is in demanding that both sexes have the freedom to strike a balance between homeplace and workplace. Men must expect their wives to financially support them to be fathers as much as they now financially support their wives to be mothers. Women must have our approval to marry the warrior of love rather than the warrior of money.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part II: The Glass Cellars of the disposable sex, p. 212.

Love, Women, Men, Money

“This strengthens a belief which I have long cherished, that in a few centuries women will be the larger, stronger sex, admired for their biceps and superfluous hair, and that men will be their toys and domestic comforters, exciting tenderness in the female breast by their small feet, pretty soft hands, and general helplessness. I do not think I have a heart, for I have never been able to locate my pulse, or any other symptom of a circulatory system, but I am willing to share any of the benefits of male delicacy.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Samuel Marchbanks' Almanack (1967)

Women, Men, Thinking, Heart

“Sex and love were driving the whole world and me crazyloco! I just couldn’t stand it anymore! I was going to have to kill myself.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

Love, World

“I am more creative when I don't have sex.”

Darrell Hammond (1955) American actor and comedian

Quoted in: People Magazine (2002), People: Almanac 2003, p. 377

“[Mead described the Arapesh as a culture in which both sexes were] placid and contented, unaggressive and noninitiatory, noncompetitive and responsive, warm, docile, and trusting.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1930s, Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935), p. 39 as cited in: Guy R. Lefrançois (1973) Of children; an introduction to child development. p. 65

“There is much to be said for post-menopausal celibacy. Sex is rough on loners because you have to have somebody else around, but now I don't. No more diets to stay slim and desirable: I've had sex and I've had food, and I'd rather eat.”

Florence King (1936–2016) American writer

Lump It or Leave It (1990)

Food

“In the beginning was nature. The background from which and against our ideas of God were formed, nature remains the supreme moral problem. We cannot hope to understand sex and gender until we clarify our attitude toward nature. Sex is a subset to nature. Sex is the natural in man.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Opening sentence, p. 1
Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990)

God, Hope, Idea, Understanding

“Jack so obviously demanded from a woman-a relationship between a man and a woman where a man would be the leader and a woman would be his wife. With Adlai Stevenson you could have another relationship-where you know, he'd be sort of be sweet and you could talk, but you wouldn't ever,.. I've always thought women who were scared of sex loved Adlai.”

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) public figure, First Lady to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy

Liking Ike: Eisenhower, Advertising and the Rise of Celebrity Politics (2016) David Haven Blake
The "Camelot" interview (29 November 1963)

Love, Women

“The last decade has seen a steady increase in the application of concepts from the theory of games to the study of evolution. Fields as diverse as sex ratio theory, animal distribution, contest behaviour and reciprocal altruism have contributed to what is now emerging as a universal way of thinking about phenotypic evolution.”

John Maynard Smith book Evolution and the Theory of Games

Source: Evolution and the Theory of Games (1973), p. vii.

Way, Game, Thinking, Study

“Being a sex symbol has to do with an attitude, not looks. Most men think it's looks, most women know otherwise.”

Kathleen Turner (1954) American actress

As quoted in The Routledge Dictionary of Quotations (1987) by Robert Andrews, p. 241
Also quoted in The Observer London UK newspaper (28 December 1986)

Women, Men, Thinking

“Punk: Wow, everybody, it's John Cena. He comes out here every Monday night, he's excitable, he throws his hat at somebody, everybody loves it. I am so impressed at how you do that. You get all these people to believe you're that friendly, smiling, everyday man, when I know the truth. And the truth, John Cena, is you're thoughtless, you're heartless, and above all else, you are dishonest. I'm sure there's millions of people worldwide, including yourself, that would love to believe this is over a spilled diet soda, but John, this goes way beyond my spilled diet soda. Yeah. John, you were fired from the WWE. You were gone. You gave a very tear-inducing speech in the middle of the ring about how you finally get to see your mom and hang out with your little brother, and you said you were gonna go away. You were gonna be a man of your way, but what happened? You came back later that night, and then you came back the next week, and then you came back the next week, showing all of these people who aren't intelligent to see through your facade what I have known all along—that your word is absolutely worthless. And then there's TLC, you have the man beaten. Wade Barrett, a very tough individual, and you have him beat in a chairs match, but that's not good enough for you. You don't take the high ground, you can't walk off into the sunset with your victory; you drag the man off to the side of the stage and you drop fifteen steel chairs on him, and I wanna know exactly why you think that's acceptable behavior. I wanna know why you think it's okay to show up the next night on Raw and humiliate the poor guy…
Cena: That is balderdash! Fifteen steel chairs? That's insane. It was 23 steel chairs. And in case you forgot, Wade Barrett and the Nexus gave me about five thousand beat-downs, made me their personal slave, and ended my career.
Punk: You wanna talk about ended careers, you hypocrite? This is exactly what I'm talking about. You ended the career of my good friend Dave Batista. John! John, look at me when I'm talking to you. This is a reoccurring pattern with you. Once again, you have the man beaten—last man standing, he verbally submits, how humiliating, the match is won. But, no, you AA him off a car through the very steel ramp that I'm sitting on, which facilitated the end of his career. Now we'll talk about Vickie Guerrero. I'm surprised the lovely Vickie Guerrero doesn't up and quit based on all the abuse you heap on her. It's not just the physical things to the Wade Barretts and the Dave Batistas, but it's the name-calling, it's the mental abuse to somebody as gorgeous and beautiful as Vickie Guerrero.
Cena: "It's the this… it's the that." Okay, CM Punk is gonna play Mr. Fingerpointer. Well…1.—Dave Batista broke my neck; 2.—He showed up on Raw the next night and quit on his own terms. And C—I didn't just single out Vickie Guerrero. In case you haven't been watching for the past… eight years, I talk about everybody. Uh… Michael Cole. Michael Cole has an anonymous fetish with Justin Bieber and has the word "The Miz" man-scaped right below his belly button. Me! Look at me. I look like the crazy sex child of the Incredible Hulk and Grimace. And then there's you.
Punk: Yeah, and then there's me, who happens to not be laughing. I don't know if you noticed that. You're not funny.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

December 27, 2010
WWE Raw

Love, People, Truth, Smile

“The Greeks used to put a lot of bodily functions in their plays, and a lot of graphic sexual material, because they believed, that in performing that way it released the demons of shame from the audience, which is what I believe. Cuz I think we’re all pretty much the same, and we all have grown up with that shame-based thing that America deals with, right? And to sit there and hear someone talk about their love of having sex, whatever, makes you feel like you’re not alone, with what you think maybe are dark, twisted thoughts, cuz they’re not. We all share these thoughts. So that’s why I talk like I do, or did, before I retired tonight.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Relentless (1992)

Love, Way, Feeling, Thinking

“Today in a land where all women inherit civic responsibility, where professions and business are open to all comers without distinction of sex, leadership through direct influence is woman’s unchallenged heritage.”

Aurelia Henry Reinhardt (1877–1948) American educator and social activist

Speech delivered in 1922 to the American Association of College Women, in [Western Journal of Education, https://books.google.com/books?id=3XovAQAAMAAJ, 3 July 2018, 1922, Harr Wagner Publishing Company, 8]

Women, Business

“I Could Never Have Sex With Any Man Who Has So Little Regard For My Husband.”

Dan Greenburg (1936) American writer

Title of film (1973) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070204/

“I can say definitely that weed is an aphrodisiac and that sex is more enjoyable under the influence of weed than without it. Anyone who has used good weed will verify this statement.”

William S. Burroughs book Junkie

Junkie (1953)

“The “old maid” with her repressed cravings for tenderness, sex, and propagation, is rarely quite free of ressentiment. What we call “prudery,” in contrast with true modesty, is but one of the numerous variants of sexual ressentiment. The habitual behavior of many old maids, who obsessively ferret out all sexually significant events in their surroundings in order to condemn them harshly, is nothing but sexual gratification transformed into ressentiment satisfaction. Thus the criticism accomplishes the very thing it pretends to condemn.”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1973), pp. 61-62

Behavior

“We may also observe, that, upon these occasions, the female Nimrods dispensed with the method of riding best suited to the modesty of the sex, and sat astride on the saddle like the men; but this indecorous custom, I trust, was never general, nor of long continuance, even with the heroines who were most delighted with these masculine exercises. An author of the seventeenth century speaks of another fashion, adopted by the fair huntresses of the town of Bury in Suffolk. "The Bury ladies," says he, "that used hawking and hunting, were once in a great vaine of wearing breeches," which it seems gave rise to many severe and ludicrous sarcasms. The only argument in favour of this habit, was decency in case of an accident. But in a manner more consistent with the delicacy of the sex, that is, by refraining from those dangerous recreations.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 14
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Hunting

Men, Exercises, Fashion

“Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

The Odyssey File (1984), also quoted in The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners (2004) by Geoff Tibballs, p. 128
1980s

Reading

“I went to a friend who's a girl and asked her, 'What's it like to have sex for the first time, if you're Irish – so you're modest, and it's the 1950s – so you've never seen it in a film?' I listened carefully to what she said, and I put it in the book. It was an important element, the detail was richly memorable for the person, it had to be in the book.”

Colm Tóibín (1955) Irish novelist and writer

On a heterosexual sex scene in Brooklyn. Let's not talk about sex – why passion is waning in British books http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/oct/16/sex-disappearing-from-novels, The Guardian (16 October 2010)

Books, Girl, Time, Personality