Someone told me the delightful story of the crusader who put a chastity belt on his wife and gave the key to his best friend for safekeeping, in case of his death. He had ridden only a few miles away when his friend, riding hard, caught up with him, saying 'You gave me the wrong key!

I had a feeling that Pandora's box contained the mysteries of woman's sensuality, so different from a man's and for which man's language was so inadequate. The language of sex had yet to be invented. The language of the senses was yet to be explored.

With her eyes alone she could give this response, this absolutely erotic response, as if febrile waves were trembling there, pools of madness... something devouring that could lick a man all over like a flame, annihilate him, with a pleasure never known before.

Everything with me is either worship and passion or pity and understanding. I hate rarely, though when I hate, I hate murderously. For example now, I hate the bank and everything connected with it. I also hate Dutch paintings, penis-sucking, parties, and cold rainy weather. But I am much more preoccupied with loving.

Mais elle sait que rien ne sera plus pareil, plus d'interdit, fini le frisson du mensonge qui écrase l'échine et réveille l'envie malsaine où les visages se superposent, plus de doigts qu'on hume le soir en cachette en cherchant l'odeur des sexes mêlés de l'après-midi avant de les cacher sous l'oreiller, dos à son mari. Elle s’est crue perverse et habile, cruelle, manipulatrice enfin, mais ce soir, au dernier acte, le reste de la nuit va tomber sur Paris et la scène minable, rétrécie, de sa si banale histoire de cul. (p.14)

How well I know with what burning intensity you live. You have experienced many lives already, including several you have shared with me- full rich lives from birth to death, and you just have to have these rest periods in between.