“Often a man can play the helpless child in front of a woman, but he can almost never bring it off when he feels most like a helpless child.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, book Tender Is the Night

Source: Tender Is the Night

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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American novelist and screenwriter 1896–1940

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“He was a banker, and towards bankers Adams felt the narrow prejudice which the serf feels to his overseer; for he knew he must obey, and he knew that the helpless showed only their helplessness when they tempered obedience by mockery. The world, after 1865, became a bankers' world.”

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“Ah! how much a mother learns from her child! The constant protection of a helpless being forces us to so strict an alliance with virtue, that a woman never shows to full advantage except as a mother. Then alone can her character expand in the fulfillment of all life’s duties and the enjoyment of all its pleasures.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

Ah! combien de choses un enfant apprend à sa mère. Il y a tant de promesses faites entre nous et la vertu dans cette protection incessante due à un être faible, que la femme n’est dans sa véritable sphère que quand elle est mère; elle déploie alors seulement ses forces, elle pratique les devoirs de sa vie, elle en a tous les bonheurs et tous les plaisirs.
Part I, ch. XXXI.
Letters of Two Brides (1841-1842)

“There is no happiness without forgetfulness. I have never known a real man of action to be unhappy during action. How could he be? Like a child at play, he stops thinking of himself.”

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“Often a man can play the helpless child in front of a woman, but he can almost never bring it off when he feels most like a helpless child.”

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