“Two sensuous lovers are not two friends. Much rather are they two enemies, closely attached to each other. I know it, I know it! There are perfect couples, no doubt — perfection always exists somewhere — but I mean us others, all of us, the ordinary people! I know! — the human being's real quality, the delicate lights and shadows of human dreams, the sweet and complicated mystery of personalities, sensuous lovers deride them, both of them! They are two egoists, falling fiercely on each other. Together they sacrifice themselves, utterly in a flash of pleasure.”

Light (1919), Ch. XXIII - Face To Face

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Henri Barbusse 197
French novelist 1873–1935

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Henri Barbusse photo

“Two sensuous lovers are not two friends. Much rather are they two enemies, closely attached to each other. I know it, I know it! There are perfect couples, no doubt — perfection always exists somewhere — but I mean us others, all of us, the ordinary people! I know!”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

the human being's real quality, the delicate lights and shadows of human dreams, the sweet and complicated mystery of personalities, sensuous lovers deride them, both of them! They are two egoists, falling fiercely on each other. Together they sacrifice themselves, utterly in a flash of pleasure.
Light (1919), Ch. XXIII - Face To Face

Elizabeth Bishop photo

“Close, close all night
the lovers keep.
They turn together
in their sleep,

Close as two pages
in a book
that read each other
in the dark.

Each knows all
the other knows,
learned by heart
from head to toes.”

Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979) American poet

Source: Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts, and Fragments

Chuck Klosterman photo

“People who barely know the two of you assume you are close friends; people who know both of you intimately suspect you profoundly hate each other.”

Chuck Klosterman (1972) Author, Columnist

Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas (2006), Recognizing Your Nemesis

Cat Deeley photo

“I don't know how they do it but those two love each other so much. They're this husband and wife duo that work together all the time and yet I've never seen them have an argument. I've never seen them kind'of roll their eyes at each other. I've never seen anything like that. They are the perfect example of a fabulous marriage.”

Cat Deeley (1976) English television presenter, actress, singer and model

On Tabitha and Napoleon D'umo, in "So You Think You Can Dance" host Cat Deeley dishes on her colleagues.mp4 interview for The Los Angeles Times (May 2010) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hekmnJWg1k

“The two of them joined together left me no answerable argument; their dream was a grand one but it was exactly that — a dream. They both lived to know this and I learned it from them, but it has not changed my love for them or my lifelong sympathy for the cause to which they devoted their lives — to ameliorate the anguish that human beings inflict on each other — the never-ending wrong, forever incurable.”

Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980) American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist

The Never-Ending Wrong (1977)
Context: Far away and long ago, I read Emma Goldman's story of her life, her first book in which she told the grim, deeply touching narrative of her young life during which she worked in a scrubby sweatshop making corsets by the bundle. At the same time, I was reading Prince Kropotkin's memoirs, his account of the long step he took from his early princely living to his membership in the union of the outcast, the poor, the depressed, and it was a most marvelous thing to have two splendid, courageous, really noble human beings speaking together, telling the same tale. It was like a duet of two great voices telling a tragic story. I believed in both of them at once. The two of them joined together left me no answerable argument; their dream was a grand one but it was exactly that — a dream. They both lived to know this and I learned it from them, but it has not changed my love for them or my lifelong sympathy for the cause to which they devoted their lives — to ameliorate the anguish that human beings inflict on each other — the never-ending wrong, forever incurable.

John Steinbeck photo
Cesare Pavese photo

“Love has the faculty of making two lovers seem naked, not in each other's sight, but in their own.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

“The two former lovers finally looked at each other, their faces crawling with the crabs of conflicting emotion.”

Source: From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (2007), Chapter 9 “Paranoia: It Can Destroy Ya” (p. 283)

Example (musician) photo

“Two lives, living two lives
I don't know which side of me is
where the truth lies
I'm living two lives, living two lives
I got two sides of me try'n'a do right
I got one on each shoulder
both saying "I told ya"
One is saying "Go"
and the other's saying "No, no, no."”

Example (musician) (1982) English rapper and singer

"Two Lives" (song)
("Two Lives", Official video on YouTube)) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn60dbD0CsE
(+ "Two Lives", a lyrics version on YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLKlbUZYd_o
Studio albums, Won't Go Quietly (2010)

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