Fay Weldon · 256 pages
Rating: (3.6K votes)
“I ran upstairs, loving, weeping. I will run downstairs, unloving, not weeping.”
― Fay Weldon, quote from The Life and Loves of a She Devil
“even as she says it, sees love drain out of his eyes: and somehow, as a stream, which seeks its own level, it flows over into hers, and her fate is sealed. The less he loves, the more she will.”
― Fay Weldon, quote from The Life and Loves of a She Devil
“for a man functions best if he ventures out into the world from a domestic setting in which his restless sexual and procreative energies are given liberty.”
― Fay Weldon, quote from The Life and Loves of a She Devil
“Up there on Olympus, where he’d been raised, where the mountain of reason pierces the sky of the intellect, the talk was all of how the soul suffered if the senses were gratified. Polly Patch would not allow it. She claimed, as the Devil would, that the senses and the soul were one: that gratifying one was to gratify the other.”
― Fay Weldon, quote from The Life and Loves of a She Devil
“We discuss things, rather than ideas; we exchange information, not theories; we keep ourselves steady by thinking about the particular. The general is frightening.”
― Fay Weldon, quote from The Life and Loves of a She Devil
“want revenge. I want power. I want money. I want to be loved and not love in return.”
― Fay Weldon, quote from The Life and Loves of a She Devil
“Yes, such has been my lot since childhood. Everyone read signs of non-existent evil traits in my features. But since they were expected to be there, they did make their appearance. Because I was reserved, they said I was sly, so I grew reticent. I was keenly aware of good and evil, but instead of being indulged I was insulted and so I became spiteful. I was sulky while other children were merry and talkative, but though I felt superior to them I was considered inferior. So I grew envious. I was ready to love the whole world, but no one understood me, and I learned to hate. My cheerless youth passed in conflict with myself and society, and fearing ridicule I buried my finest feelings deep in my heart, and there they died. I spoke the truth, but nobody believed me, so I began to practice duplicity. Having come to know society and its mainsprings, I became versed in the art of living and saw how others were happy without that proficiency, enjoying for free the favors I had so painfully striven for. It was then that despair was born in my heart--not the despair that is cured with a pistol, but a cold, impotent desperation, concealed under a polite exterior and a good-natured smile. I became a moral cripple; I had lost one half of my soul, for it had shriveled, dried up and died, and I had cut it off and cast it away, while the other half stirred and lived, adapted to serve every comer. No one noticed this, because no one suspected there had been another half. Now, however, you have awakened memories of it in me, and what I have just done is to read its epitaph to you. Many regard all epitaphs as ridiculous, but I do not, particularly when I remember what rests beneath them.”
― Mikhail Lermontov, quote from Der Held unserer Zeit: Kaukasische Lebensbilder
“Every time I want to give up on him, there's always something inside telling me to just give it time.”
― Natasha Friend, quote from My Life in Black and White
“The mature response, however, is not to leave; it's to change -- ourselves.
Whenever marital dissatisfaction rears its head in my marriage -- as it does in virtually every marriage -- I simply check my focus. The times that I am happiest and most fulfilled in my marriage are the times when I am intent on drawing meaning and fulfillment from becoming a better husband rather than from demanding a "better" wife.
If you're a Christian, the reality is that, biblically speaking, you can't swap your spouse for someone else. But you can change yourself. And that change can bring the fulfillment that you mistakenly believe is found only by changing partners. In one sense, it's comical: Yes, we need a changed partner, but the partner that needs to change is not our spouse, it's us!
I don't know why this works. I don't know how you can be unsatisfied maritally, and then offer yourself to God to bring about change in your life and suddenly find yourself more satisfied with the same spouse. I don't why this works, only that it does work. It takes time, and by time I mean maybe years. But if your heart is driven by the desire to draw near to Jesus, you find joy by becoming like Jesus. You'll never find joy by doing something that offends Jesus -- such as instigating a divorce or an affair.”
― Gary L. Thomas, quote from Sacred Marriage: Celebrating Marriage as a Spiritual Discipline
“A veces, se me da por sentir que la alegría es un delito de alta traición, y que soy culpable del privilegio de seguir vivo y libre.”
― Eduardo Galeano, quote from Days and Nights of Love and War
“The artist is the closest man comes to being God.”
― Leonard Peikoff, quote from Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand
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