#body

I worship her, Alyosha, worship her. Only she doesn't see it. No, she still thinks I don't love her enough. And she tortures me, tortures me with her love. The past was nothing! In the past it was only that infernal body of hers that tortured me, but now I've taken all her soul into my soul and through her I've become a man. Will they marry us? If they don't I will die of jealousy. I imagine something every day... ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#imagination #love #soul #imagination

And so I was scared. I was scared of my own sexual hunger, which felt so secretive and uncharted, and I was scared of the sexual hunger of boys, which felt so vivid and overt, and I was terribly uncertain of the relationships between sex and power and value, which seemed so merged and hard to tease apart. In the midst of all that, I didn't exactly loathe my body, or feel ashamed of it, but I was deeply ashamed of my fear, which felt disabling and immature and woefully, painfully uncool, a terrible secret, evidence of some profound failing and ignorance on my part. Other girls, or so I imagined, knew what to do, how to use their power, how to derive pleasure from it, and in contrast, I felt not only freakish but isolated, as though I was standing outside a vital, defining loop. ↗

— Caroline Knapp

#power #puberty #sexuality #imagination

Doctors don’t seem to realize that most of us are perfectly content not having to visualize ourselves as animated bags of skin filled with obscene glop. ↗

— Joe Haldeman

#human-body #visualization

Her body was a prison, her mind was a prison. Her memories were a prison. The people she loved. She couldn't get away from the hurt of them. She could leave Eric, walk out of her apartment, walk forever if she liked, but she couldn't escape what really hurt. Tonight even the sky felt like a prison. ↗

— Ann Brashares

#escape #hurt #leave #love #memories

Telling yourself you like the way you look is easy. Believing it is an entirely different kettle of whales. ↗

— Andrew Biss

#self-esteem #self-image #body-image

Not everybody agrees on what's funny, obviously. ↗

— Tim Meadows

#funny #obviously

Afterward she lies nestled against me, her hair tickling my face. I stroke her lightly, memorizing her body. I want her to melt into me, like butter on toast. I want to absorb her and walk around for the rest of my days with her encased in my skin. ↗

— Sara Gruen

#love #touch #love

Women worry too much about how they smell or taste. I assure you, I love to taste a woman’s primal essence on my tongue.” Something melted inside her. He liked it? “Really? You’re not just being polite, are you, Sir?” “No, kitten, when it comes to sex, I don’t have a polite bone in my body. ↗

— Kallypso Masters

#kallypso-masters #nobody-s-hero #love

She was aware that in love even the most passionate idealism will not rid the body's surface of its terrible, basic importance. ↗

— Milan Kundera

#image #love #relationships #sex #love

I didn't approve of murder on general principles. Not even of people who seemed to go around begging for it. ↗

— Josh Lanyon

#josh-lanyon #somebody-killed-his-editor #humor