“
I am interested in language because it wounds or seduces me.
”
”
Roland Barthes (The Pleasure of the Text)
“
Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.
”
”
Arthur Miller
“
I don't hate you.. I just don't like that you exist
”
”
Gena Showalter (Seduce the Darkness (Alien Huntress, #4))
“
The next time you try to seduce anyone, don't do it with talk, with words. Women know more about words than men ever will. And they know how little they can ever possibly mean.
”
”
William Faulkner
“
I coveted you. I had no right to want you--but I reached out and took you anyway. And now look what's become of you! Trying to seduce a vampire.
”
”
Stephenie Meyer (Eclipse)
“
Babe, nice lingerie is for seducing a man. I’m already fucking seduced.
”
”
Samantha Young (On Dublin Street (On Dublin Street, #1))
“
Words can be twisted into any shape. Promises can be made to lull the heart and seduce the soul. In the final analysis, words mean nothing. They are labels we give things in an effort to wrap our puny little brains around their underlying natures, when ninety-nine percent of the time the totality of the reality is an entirely different beast. The wisest man is the silent one. Examine his actions. Judge him by them.
”
”
Karen Marie Moning
“
Yes, my consuming desire is to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, barroom regulars—to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording—all this is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always supposedly in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yes, God, I want to talk to everybody as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night...
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
“
It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.
”
”
Voltaire
“
If I had a dollar for every time a random woman walked up to me and tried to seduce me, I'd have 50 cents. That's assuming drag queens are half price.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (This Book is Not for Sale)
“
Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.
”
”
Bill Gates
“
Once upon a time, Caleb held me captive in the dark, now he used it to seduce me.
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
You look more ready to storm a city than seduce a man.
”
”
Victoria E. Schwab (A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic, #1))
“
But a desperate heart will seduce the mind.
”
”
Mitch Albom (The Time Keeper)
“
Re'lar Kvothe," he said seriously. "I am trying to wake your sleeping mind to the subtle language the world is whispering. I am trying to seduce you into understanding. I am trying to teach you." He leaned forward until his face was almost touching mine. "Quit grabbing at my tits.
”
”
Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Man’s Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
“
The kiss....was not meant to seduce, it was meant to mark a woman's soul.
Chloe
”
”
Karen Marie Moning (The Dark Highlander (Highlander, #5))
“
do not choose the lesser life. do you hear me. do you hear me. choose the life that is. yours. the life that is seducing your lungs. that is dripping down your chin.
”
”
Nayyirah Waheed (nejma)
“
I've never created a riot before. I did cause a brawl at the last formal. A large number of young women there actually arrived with the expectation of seducing me into matrimony, and a couple of their mothers came to blows. It was hilari—I mean, dreadful. Simply dreadful.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (On the Edge (The Edge, #1))
“
The problem with books is that they end. They seduce you. They spread their legs to you and pull you inside. And you go deep and leave your possessions and your ties to the world at the door and you like it inside and you don't want for your possessions or your ties and then, the book evaporates.
”
”
Caroline Kepnes (You (You, #1))
“
Wit seduces by signaling intelligence without nerdiness.
”
”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms)
“
At seventeen the young woman had worked out how to improve her future prospects; she would seduce the Prince.
”
”
Robert Reid (The Emperor (The Emperor, the Son and the Thief, #1))
“
I am running after you, and life, in desperate pursuit. My dream is that someday you will both turn and let me catch you. That dream carries me through every night... I have enclosed a hundred kisses in this letter. You must count them out carefully and not lose any.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Seduce Me at Sunrise (The Hathaways, #2))
“
There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness. When you're high it's tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones. Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty. There are interests found in uninteresting people. Sensuality is pervasive and the desire to seduce and be seduced irresistible. Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence, and euphoria pervade one's marrow. But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are far too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Memory goes. Humor and absorption on friends' faces are replaced by fear and concern. Everything previously moving with the grain is now against-- you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable, and enmeshed totally in the blackest caves of the mind. You never knew those caves were there. It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.
”
”
Kay Redfield Jamison (An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness)
“
I love you, Caleb. I love you! If you care for me at all... please, don't do this! Please, don't leave me. I don't know how to live without you. Don't make me go back to trying to be someone I don't know how to be anymore. - Livvie
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
So, let me get this straight," Winston says. "Our plan is basically seduce the soldiers and civilians of Sector 45 into fighting with us?"
Kenji crossed his arms. "Yeah, it sounds like we're going to go all peacock and hope they find us attractive enough to mate with."
"Gross," Brendan frowns.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (Ignite Me (Shatter Me, #3))
“
Being born a woman is my awful tragedy. From the moment I was conceived I was doomed to sprout breasts and ovaries rather than penis and scrotum; to have my whole circle of action, thought and feeling rigidly circumscribed by my inescapable feminity. Yes, my consuming desire to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, bar room regulars--to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording--all is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yet, God, I want to talk to everybody I can as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night...
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
“
I've been doing this a long time- manipulating people to get my way. That's why you think you love me. Because I've broken you down and built you back up to believe it. It wasn't an accident. Once you leave this behind..... you'll see that. -Caleb
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
What are you doing ?" She said and laughed.
"I was curious," he whispered.
"About what ?"
"If happy tears taste the same as the sad ones," he said.
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
He had told her he wasn’t Prince Charming, but what he hadn’t said, was he wished he could be.
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
She kisses my scars and I create new ones for her.
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
Tell me you love me, Caleb," I whispered.
He kissed me, refusing. "I wish I could, Kitten
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
I make it a policy never to seduce anyone prettier than I am."
I laughed. "I think that was an insult.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Ruin and Rising (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #3))
“
The body can endure compromise and the mind can be seduced by it. Only the heart protests.
”
”
Jeanette Winterson (The PowerBook)
“
For far too long we have been seduced into walking a path that did not lead us to ourselves. For far too long we have said yes when we wanted to say no. And for far too long we have said no when we desperately wanted to say yes. . . .
When we don't listen to our intuition, we abandon our souls. And we abandon our souls because we are afraid if we don't, others will abandon us.
”
”
Terry Tempest Williams (When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice)
“
The Yogic sages say that all the pain of a human life is caused by words, as is all the joy. We create words to define our experience and those words bring attendant emotions that jerk us around like dogs on a leash. We get seduced by our own mantras (I'm a failure... I'm lonely... I'm a failure... I'm lonely...) and we become monuments to them. To stop talking for a while, then, is to attempt to strip away the power of words, to stop choking ourselves with words, to liberate ourselves from our suffocating mantras.
”
”
Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)
“
I love you, he thought, looking at Win. I love every part of you, every thought and word... the entire complex, fascinating bundle of all the things you are. I want you with ten different kinds of need at once. I love all the seasons of you, the way you are now, the thought of how much more beautiful you'll be in the decades to come. I love you for being the answer to every question my heart could ask.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Seduce Me at Sunrise (The Hathaways, #2))
“
Some stories aren't black and white.
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
He leans back and stares down at me, and then I suddenly see it there in his eyes, unconcealed. The lust. The want. He wants me. He’s trying to seduce me. I’m so completely fucked.
”
”
Samantha Towle (The Mighty Storm (The Storm, #1))
“
The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim. An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will.
”
”
Gustave Le Bon (سيكولوجية الجماهير)
“
Mine.
The word was a declaration. It rocked him to his very foundation. It was a truth he’d kept hidden for far too long. Caleb didn’t know anything about love, or loving anyone, but he knew… Livvie was his.
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
We are so scared of being judged that we look for every excuse to procrastinate.
”
”
Erica Jong (Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life)
“
Hell was not a pit of fire and brimstone. Hell was waking up alone, the sheets wet with your tears and your seed, knowing the woman you had dreamed of would never come back to you.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Seduce Me at Sunrise (The Hathaways, #2))
“
India has always had a strange way with her conquerors. In defeat, she beckons them in, then slowly seduces, assimilates and transforms them.
”
”
William Dalrymple (White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India)
“
One glance and I knew exactly who and what he was. The classic alpha male, the kind who had spurred evolution forward about five million years ago by nailing every female in sight. They charmed, seduced, and behaved like bastards, and yet women were biologically incapable of resisting their magic DNA.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Smooth Talking Stranger (Travises, #3))
“
Live for me, Kitten. Be all those things you'd never be with me. Go to school. Meet a normal boy and fall in love. Forgive me. It's time for you to go, Kitten. Time for us both, to go.
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
We dance to seduce ourselves. To fall in love with ourselves. When we dance with another, we manifest the very thing we love about ourselves so that they may see it and love us too.
”
”
Kamand Kojouri
“
You had this all planned, didn’t you?' I accused. 'Thought you could come in here and seduce me like you do everyone else?' It wasn’t as if I could be angry, lying atop him as I was, but I tried.
”
”
Kim Harrison (Every Which Way But Dead (The Hollows, #3))
“
She straightened. “You tried to seduce me, for information.”
“You can’t hold that against me forever.”
“It was last night.”
“Well I was running out of options, and I figured it was worth a shot.”
Lila rolled her eyes. “You really know how to make a girl feel special.
”
”
Victoria E. Schwab (A Gathering of Shadows (Shades of Magic, #2))
“
The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the more you need to seduce the senses to it.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“
One day you will learn that love does not always betray you.
”
”
Mary Balogh (Seducing an Angel (Huxtable Quintet, #4))
“
Softly, he inhales and exhales as we kiss. He never stops kissing me; he simply continues to steal my breath, returning it to me only when he’s infused it with his essence. Pure lust lives inside him. Every breath I take should come from his lungs.
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
For the love of Christ, shut-up! Let a bitch enjoy you mental breakdown in peace.
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
That you could fix me? What's more, that I could fix you? Well, Sorry, pet, I don't want to be fixed. - Caleb
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
What mattered is I was different. The naive girl in me had been bitch-slapped into womanhood. ~Livvie
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
I never hated you. My anger was never with you, but with the little hell my heart had put me in. The anger always passed. I never regretted loving you. If I had gone to my grave never kissing you or touching you, I still would not have thought it a wasted love.
”
”
Madeline Hunter (The Romantic (Seducers #5))
“
Above all else, I had learned the one thing every person has to learn to make it through life: the only person you can truly count on is yourself.
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
Through dreams and ideas we are seduced to go back to particular places and instances of our past. In the course of the years, these singular moments and spaces of our history very often receive then another color and dimension. Our mind tries however to tame and keep in control the phantoms of times past. If not so, our memory can be subject to an irreversible mutilation. ( "The mutilated memory" )
”
”
Erik Pevernagie
“
I'm done being the damsel in distress. I don't need anyone to save me.
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
Illium, with his wings of silver-kissed blue and a face designed to seduce both males and females, not to mention his ability to do the most impossible acrobatics in the air, would provide a worthy diversion. The fact that he’d decided to ditch half his clothing was just icing on the cake.
”
”
Nalini Singh (Archangel's Consort (Guild Hunter, #3))
“
Glaring at the doctor, Kev spoke in Romany. "Ka xlia ma pe tute" (I'm going to shit on you.)
"Which means," Rohan said hastily, "'Please forgive the misunderstanding; let's part as friends.'"
"Te malavel les i menkiva," Kev added for good measure. (May you die of a malignant wasting disease.)
"Roughly translated," Rohan said, "that means, 'May your garden be filled with fine, fat hedgehogs.' Which, I may add, is considered quite a blessing among the Rom.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Seduce Me at Sunrise (The Hathaways, #2))
“
I'm not good enough for you. But no one is. And most men, good or bad, have limits to what they would do, even for someone they love. I have none. No God, no moral code, no faith in anything. Except you. You're my religion. I would do anything you asked. I would fight, steal, kill for you."
-Kev to Win
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Seduce Me at Sunrise (The Hathaways, #2))
“
Art is the process of evoking pity and terror, which is not abstract at all but very human. What the self-styled modern artists are doing is a sort of unemotional pseudointellectual masturbation . . . whereas creative art is more like intercourse, in which the artist must seduce -- render emotional -- his audience, each time.
”
”
Robert A. Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land)
“
All the fires of hell could burn for a thousand years and it wouldn't equal what I feel for you in one minute of the day. I love you so much there is no pleasure in it. Nothing but torment. Because if I could dilute what I feel for you to the millionth part, it would still be enough to kill you. And even if it drives me mad, I would rather see you live in the arms of that cold, soulless bastard than die in mine," Merripen said to Win.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Seduce Me at Sunrise (The Hathaways, #2))
“
That's a movie quote, right? You know, if you do that with books, people think you're intelligent."
Sophie lowered her chin. "If this is your pathetic attempt to seduce me again, you're falling miserably."
"I don't seduce woman." Phin shoved back his chair and stood up. "They fall into my open arms."
"Clumsy of them.
”
”
Jennifer Crusie (Welcome to Temptation (Dempseys, #1))
“
It seemed to Caleb, the nature of human being revolved around one empirical truth: we want what we cannot have. For Eve, it was the fruit of the forbidden tree. For Caleb, it was Livvie.
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
I"ve heard it said, time heals all wounds, but if a dream can pull you so deeply into your past you can't remember the present, I'm not sure my wounds will ever heal. Caleb lives in my dreams.
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
Well, in that hit you miss. She'll not be hit
With Cupid's arrow. She hath Dian's wit,
And, in strong proff of chastity well armed,
From Love's weak childish bow she lives uncharmed.
She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide th' encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold.
O, she is rich in beauty; only poor
That, when she dies, with dies her store.
Act 1,Scene 1, lines 180-197
”
”
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
“
My name is Kitten and my master is gone. What could possibly be more important?
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
We are not evil. We don't harm or seduce people. We are not dangerous. We are ordinary people like you. We have families, jobs, hopes, and dreams. We are not a cult. This religion is not a joke. We are not what you think we are from looking at T.V. We are real. We laugh, we cry. We are serious. We have a sense of humor. You don't have to be afraid of us. We don't want to convert you. And please don't try to convert us. Just give us the same right we give you--to live in peace. We are much more similar to you than you think.
”
”
Margot Adler
“
Dealing with Caleb was all about perspective. You couldn’t appreciate his kindness until you’d felt his cruelty.
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
And yes, I came over here fully intending to seduce you." He lifted his head and whispered in my ear, "It's what I'm good at. Just like you're good at evading demons and kicking ass."
"Kicking ass?" I questioned as he dropped his head back to the arm of the couch. His hand was exploring again, and I didn't want to move.
"Yeah," he said, and I jumped as he found a ticklish spot. "I like a woman who takes care of herself."
"Not much of a white knight on a horse, huh?"
He raised one eyebrow. "Oh, I could," he said. "But I'm a lazy son of a bitch.
”
”
Kim Harrison (Every Which Way But Dead (The Hollows, #3))
“
Was it possible to physically feel the moment you lost your heart to someone? Because Lucie was fairly sure she'd just lost hers, and the spot where it should have been literally hurt.
”
”
Gina L. Maxwell (Seducing Cinderella (Fighting for Love, #1))
“
In the dark, my master let down his guard and he was Caleb again. He didn’t correct me. He didn’t punish me. He didn’t push me away emotionally. Caleb was there to hold me until the nightmares passed. He was there to tell me I was beautiful. He was there to tell me I was going to be okay. In the dark, he seduced me. I didn’t want the seduction to end.
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
Gideon: We've established some talking points: we have an intense sexual attraction and neither of us wants to date. So what do you want – exactly? Seduction, Eva? Do you want to be seduced?
Eva: Sex that’s planned like a business transaction is a turnoff for me.
Gideon: Establishing parameters in a merger makes it less likely that there’ll be exaggerated expectations and disappointment.
Eva: Why even call it a fuck? Why not be clear and call it seminal emission in a pre-approved orifice?
”
”
Sylvia Day (Bared to You (Crossfire, #1))
“
A weak but steady throb lay beneath Kev's searching fingertips. Win's heartbeat...the pulse that sustained his universe.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Seduce Me at Sunrise (The Hathaways, #2))
“
Lucy Marie Maris...I am completely and utterly in love with you. And as god is my witness- no matter how long it takes- someday I will be worthy enough to be your husband, because I can't bear the thought of living without you.
”
”
Gina L. Maxwell (Seducing Cinderella (Fighting for Love, #1))
“
I was insanely jealous."
"I know. It should make me happy, but it doesn't."
"Why ?"
"I'd rather make you happy, Caleb. I'd rather see you smile.
”
”
C.J. Roberts (Seduced in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #2))
“
I love you, he thought, looking at Win. I love every part of you, every thought and word... the entire complex, fascinating bundle of all the things you are. I want you with ten different kinds of need at once. I love all the seasons of you, the way you are now, the thought of how much more beautiful you'll be in the decades to come. I love you for being the answer to every question my heart could ask.
And it seemed so easy, once he capitulated. It seemed natural and right.
Kev wasn't certain if he was surrendering to Win or to his own passion for her. Only that there was no more holding back. He would take her. And he would give her everything he had, every part of his soul, even the broken pieces.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Seduce Me at Sunrise (The Hathaways, #2))
“
So, come on,” he said softly, taunting me. “What’s the plan here, Ev? How were you going to convince me?”
“Oh. Well, I was um … I was going to seduce you, I guess. And see what happened. Yeah…”
“How? By complaining about me buying you stuff?”
“No. That was just an added bonus. You’re welcome.”
He licked his lips, but I saw the smile. “Right. Come on then, show me your moves.”
“My moves?”
“Your seduction techniques. Come on, time’s a-wasting.” I hesitated and he clicked his tongue, impatient. “I’m only wearing a towel, baby. How hard can this be?
”
”
Kylie Scott (Lick (Stage Dive, #1))
“
Harry, despite your privileged insight into Voldemort’s world (which, incidentally, is a gift any Death Eater would kill to have), you have never been seduced by the Dark Arts, never, even for a second, shown the slightest desire to become one of Voldemort’s followers!”
“Of course I haven’t!” said Harry indignantly. “He killed my mum and dad!”
“You are protected, in short, by your ability to love!” said Dumbledore loudly.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6))
“
Heartache often drives us to consume things we wouldn't otherwise, such as an entire pint of Caramel Pecan Perfection high-fat ice cream, covered in ganache, the crack cocaine of frozed dairy. Twelve hundred calories per pint, six hundred and eighty of which are fat calories, but is only dulls the pain for the moment, there's that carb fog while you're standing at the sink shoving it in your face, and then it's over and you feel...used. Like a cheap pickup the Dove people seduced and abandoned in your kitchen, leaving you with sticky hands and an empty cup and a still-broken heart, except now you're mad at Dove, too.
”
”
Jennifer Crusie
“
But no one can predict of a certainty what will happen. And none of it will change how I intend to spend the rest of my life. I will live it on my terms. And you... you can have all of me or nothing. I won't be an invalid any longer. Not even if it means losing you.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Seduce Me at Sunrise (The Hathaways, #2))
“
I've called in the oracles and they were communing with the Fates. But you know how they are. I'm sure it'll come back as 'When the sky is green,m and the earth turns black, the Daimons will give you lots of flack. To kill the great awful one you seek, you'll have to find something unique.' Or some bullshit like that. I really hate Oracles. If I wanted to play mind games, I'd buy a Rubik's Cube. (Acheron)
I don't know, Ash, you're pretty good at that. Sure you don't want to take up an Oracle position? (Kyrian)
Picture this, General, my middle finger is extended all the way up, and aimed right at you. Now let me work. I have Daimons to track, Dark-Hunters to antagonize, and women to seduce. (Acheron)
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Night Pleasures (Dark-Hunter #1))
“
Is not the most erotic portion of a body where the garment gapes? In perversion (which is the realm of textual pleasure) there are no "erogenous zones" (a foolish expression, besides); it is intermittence, as psychoanalysis has so rightly stated, which is erotic: the intermittence of skin flashing between two articles of clothing (trousers and sweater), between two edges (the open-necked shirt, the glove and the sleeve); it is this flash itself which seduces, or rather: the staging of an appearance-as-disappearance.
”
”
Roland Barthes
“
In his student days, he used to argue that if a woman has no other course open to her but starvation, prostitution, or throwing herself from a bridge, then surely the prostitute, who has shown the most tenacious instinct for self-preservation, should be considered stronger and saner than her frailer and no longer living sisters. One couldn't have it both ways, he'd pointed out: if women are seduced and abandoned they're supposed to go mad, but if they survive, and seduce in their turn, then they were mad to begin with.
”
”
Margaret Atwood (Alias Grace)
“
The most dangerous people in the world are not the tiny minority instigating evil acts, but those who do the acts for them. For example, when the British invaded India, many Indians accepted to work for the British to kill off Indians who resisted their occupation. So in other words, many Indians were hired to kill other Indians on behalf of the enemy for a paycheck. Today, we have mercenaries in Africa, corporate armies from the western world, and unemployed men throughout the Middle East killing their own people - and people of other nations - for a paycheck. To act without a conscience, but for a paycheck, makes anyone a dangerous animal. The devil would be powerless if he couldn't entice people to do his work. So as long as money continues to seduce the hungry, the hopeless, the broken, the greedy, and the needy, there will always be war between brothers.
”
”
Suzy Kassem
“
Rest in Peace?’ Why that phrase? That’s the most ridiculous phrase I’ve ever heard! You die, and they say ‘Rest in Peace!’ …Why would one need to ‘rest’ when they’re dead?! I spent thousands of years of world history resting. While Agamemnon was leading his ships to Troy, I was resting. While Ovid was seducing women at the chariot races, I was resting. While Jeanne d’Arc was hallucinating, I was resting. I wait until airplanes are scuttling across the sky to burst out onto the scene, and I’m only going to be here for a short while, so when I die, I certainly won’t need to rest again! Not while more adventures of the same kind are going on.
”
”
Roman Payne (Rooftop Soliloquy)
“
I've always started every day by going to the window for a glimpse of the sky. But now I won't have to."
"Why not?" She asked softly.
"Because I'll see the blue of your eyes instead."
"How romantic you are," she murmured with a grin, kissing him gently. "But don't worry. I won't tell anyone.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Seduce Me at Sunrise (The Hathaways, #2))
“
You seduced a young woman in order to be able to finish your talks with her. You could not do that without living with her. You could not live with her without seducing her; but that was the by-product. The point is that you can't otherwise talk. You can't finish talks at street corners; in museums; even in drawing-rooms. You mayn't be in the mood when she is in the mood – for the intimate conversation that means the final communion of your souls. You have to wait together – for a week, for a year, for a lifetime, before the final intimate conversation may be attained...and exhausted. So that...
That in effect was love.
”
”
Ford Madox Ford (Parade's End)
“
Every morning the maple leaves.
Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts
from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big
and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out
You will be alone always and then you will die.
So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog
of non-definitive acts,
something other than the desperation.
Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your party.
Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I came to your party
and seduced you
and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing.
You want a better story. Who wouldn’t?
A forest, then. Beautiful trees. And a lady singing.
Love on the water, love underwater, love, love and so on.
What a sweet lady. Sing lady, sing! Of course, she wakes the dragon.
Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly
flames everywhere.
I can tell already you think I’m the dragon,
that would be so like me, but I’m not. I’m not the dragon.
I’m not the princess either.
Who am I? I’m just a writer. I write things down.
I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure,
I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow
glass, but that comes later.
Let me do it right for once,
for the record, let me make a thing of cream and stars that becomes,
you know the story, simply heaven.
Inside your head you hear a phone ringing
and when you open your eyes
only a clearing with deer in it. Hello deer.
Inside your head the sound of glass,
a car crash sound as the trucks roll over and explode in slow motion.
Hello darling, sorry about that.
Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we
lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell
and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud.
Especially that, but I should have known.
Inside your head you hear
a phone ringing, and when you open your eyes you’re washing up
in a stranger’s bathroom,
standing by the window in a yellow towel, only twenty minutes away
from the dirtiest thing you know.
All the rooms of the castle except this one, says someone, and suddenly
darkness,
suddenly only darkness.
In the living room, in the broken yard,
in the back of the car as the lights go by. In the airport
bathroom’s gurgle and flush, bathed in a pharmacy of
unnatural light,
my hands looking weird, my face weird, my feet too far away.
I arrived in the city and you met me at the station,
smiling in a way
that made me frightened. Down the alley, around the arcade,
up the stairs of the building
to the little room with the broken faucets, your drawings, all your things,
I looked out the window and said
This doesn’t look that much different from home,
because it didn’t,
but then I noticed the black sky and all those lights.
We were inside the train car when I started to cry. You were crying too,
smiling and crying in a way that made me
even more hysterical. You said I could have anything I wanted, but I
just couldn’t say it out loud.
Actually, you said Love, for you,
is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s
terrifying. No one
will ever want to sleep with you.
Okay, if you’re so great, you do it—
here’s the pencil, make it work …
If the window is on your right, you are in your own bed. If the window
is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing
river water.
Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently
we have had our difficulties and there are many things
I want to ask you.
I tried that one time, high school, second lunch, and then again,
years later, in the chlorinated pool.
I am still talking to you about help. I still do not have
these luxuries.
I have told you where I’m coming from, so put it together.
I want more applesauce. I want more seats reserved for heroes.
Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you.
Quit milling around the yard and come inside.
”
”
Richard Siken
“
The stars are brilliant at this time of night
and I wander these streets like a ritual I don’t dare to break
for darling, the times are quite glorious.
I left him by the water’s edge,
still waving long after the ship was gone
and if someone would have screamed my name I wouldn’t have heard for I’ve said goodbye so many times in my short life that farewells are a muscular task and I’ve taught them well.
There’s a place by the side of the railway near the lake where I grew up and I used to go there to burry things and start anew.
I used to go there to say goodbye.
I was young and did not know many people but I had hidden things inside that I never dared to show and in silence I tried to kill them,
one way or the other,
leaving sin on my body
scrubbing tears off with salt
and I built my rituals in farewells.
Endings I still cling to.
So I go to the ocean to say goodbye.
He left that morning, the last words still echoing in my head
and though he said he’d come back one day I know a broken promise from a right one
for I have used them myself and there is no coming back.
Minds like ours are can’t be tamed and the price for freedom is the price we pay.
I turned away from the ocean
as not to fall for its plea
for it used to seduce and consume me
and there was this one night
a few years back and I was not yet accustomed to farewells
and just like now I stood waving long after the ship was gone.
But I was younger then and easily fooled
and the ocean was deep and dark and blue
and I took my shoes off to let the water freeze my bones.
I waded until I could no longer walk and it was too cold to swim but still I kept on walking at the bottom of the sea for I could not tell the difference between the ocean and the lack of someone I loved and I had not yet learned how the task of moving on is as necessary as survival.
Then days passed by and I spent them with my work
and now I’m writing letters I will never dare to send.
But there is this one day every year or so
when the burden gets too heavy
and I collect my belongings I no longer need
and make my way to the ocean to burn and drown and start anew
and it is quite wonderful, setting fire to my chains and flames on written words
and I stand there, starring deep into the heat until they’re all gone.
Nothing left to hold me back.
You kissed me that morning as if you’d never done it before and never would again and now I write another letter that I will never dare to send, collecting memories of loss
like chains wrapped around my veins,
and if you see a fire from the shore tonight
it’s my chains going up in flames.
The time of moon i quite glorious.
We could have been so glorious.
”
”
Charlotte Eriksson (You're Doing Just Fine)
“
The worst part about loving someone, Merripen, is that there will always be things you can't protect her from. Things beyond your control. You finally realize there is something worse than dying... and that is having something happen to her. You have to live with that fear always. But you have to take the bad part, if you want the good part."
Kev looked at him bleakly. "What's the good part?"
A smile touched Cam's lips. "All the rest of it is the good part," he said, and went.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Seduce Me at Sunrise (The Hathaways, #2))
“
Merda! Her lace panties had snagged on his ring, the signet ring he'd inherited from his father, Giacomo Casanova. His father had seduced hundred of women without any problems whatsoever, and he was having trouble with just one. This was the real reason he never used the Casanova name. He could never live up to his father's reputation. The old man was probably laughing in his grave.
Nine circles of hell," Jack muttered.
Hell?" Lara asked. "I thought I was the Holy Land."
You're paradise. Unfortunately, I am stuck there."
Her eyes widened. "Stuck?"
Normally, I would love being stuck to your lovely bum, but it would look odd if we go sightseeing with my hand under your skirt. Especially in the basilica."
She glanced down. "How can you be stuck?"
My ring. It's caught in the lace. See?" He moved his hand down her hip, dragging her undies down a few inches.
Okay, stop." She bit her lip, frowning, then suddenly giggled. "I can't believe this has happened."
I assure you, as much as I had hoped to get your clothes off, this was not part of my original plan."
She snorted. "No problem. Just rip yourself loose."
Are you sure?" It will destroy you undies."
She narrowed her eyes with a seductuve look. "Rip it."
Very well." He jerked his hand away, but the panties came with him. He yanked his hand back and forth, but the lacy, latex material simply stretched with him. "Santo cielo, they are indestructible."
Lara laughed.
He continued to wage battle, but to no avail. "They could use this material to build spaceships.
”
”
Kerrelyn Sparks (Secret Life of a Vampire (Love at Stake, #6))
“
Beware of books. They are more than innocent assemblages of paper and ink and string and glue. If they are any good, they have the spirit of the author within. Authors are rogues and ruffians and easy lays. They are gluttons for sweets and savories. They devour life and always want more. They have sap, spirit, sex. Books are panderers. The Jews are not wrong to worship books. A real book has pheromones and sprouts grass through its cover.
”
”
Erica Jong (Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life)
“
Since when?” she challenged.
“Since when has my heart been with you?” She nodded. He stepped closer and framed her face in his large hands. “Quite possibly from the first time I heard you snort.” He placed a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Very probably when you flirted with our waiter.” A warm kiss on the freckle by her eye. “Almost certainly the first time you fell asleep in my arms.” A small kiss on the opposite cheek. “And most definitely the night we made love.” Finally, a tender kiss on the lips.
”
”
Gina L. Maxwell (Seducing Cinderella (Fighting for Love, #1))
“
Yet if women are so flighty, fickle, changeable, susceptible, and inconstant (as some clerks would have us believe), why is it that their suitors have to resort to such trickery to have their way with them? And why don't women quickly succumb to them, without the need for all this skill and ingenuity in conquering them? For there is no need to go to war for a castle that is already captured. (...)
Therefore, since it is necessary to call on such skill, ingenuity, and effort in order to seduce a woman, whether of high or humble birth, the logical conclusion to draw is that women are by no means as fickle as some men claim, or as easily influenced in their behaviour. And if anyone tells me that books are full of women like these, it is this very reply, frequently given, which causes me to complain. My response is that women did not write these books nor include the material which attacks them and their morals. Those who plead their cause in the absence of an opponent can invent to their heart's content, can pontificate without taking into account the opposite point of view and keep the best arguments for themselves, for aggressors are always quick to attack those who have no means of defence. But if women had written these books, I know full well the subject would have been handled differently. They know that they stand wrongfully accused, and that the cake has not been divided up equally, for the strongest take the lion's share, and the one who does the sharing out keeps the biggest portion for himself.
”
”
Christine de Pizan (Der Sendbrief vom Liebesgott / The Letter of the God of Love (L'Epistre au Dieu d'Amours))
“
In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.
The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor -- by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things.
He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. He will take no man's money dishonestly and no man's insolence without due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks -- that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.
The story is the man's adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.
”
”
Raymond Chandler (The Simple Art of Murder)
“
He was the kind of young man whose handsome face has brought him plenty of success in the past and is now ever-ready for a new encounter, a fresh-experience, always eager to set off into the unknown territory of a little adventure, never taken by surprise because he has worked out everything in advance and is waiting to see what happens, a man who will never overlook any erotic opportunity, whose first glance probes every woman's sensuality, and explores it, without discriminating between his friend's wife and the parlour-maid who opens the door to him. Such men are described with a certain facile contempt as lady-killers, but the term has a nugget of truthful observation in it, for in fact all the passionate instincts of the chase are present in their ceaseless vigilance: the stalking of the prey, the excitement and mental cruelty of the kill. They are constantly on the alert, always ready and willing to follow the trail of an adventure to the very edge of the abyss. They are full of passion all the time, but it is the passion of a gambler rather than a lover, cold, calculating and dangerous. Some are so persistent that their whole lives, long after their youth is spent, are made an eternal adventure by this expectation. Each of their days is resolved into hundreds of small sensual experiences - a look exchanged in passing, a fleeting smile, knees brushing together as a couple sit opposite each other - and the year, in its own turn, dissolves into hundreds of such days in which sensuous experience is the constantly flowing, nourishing, inspiring source of life.
”
”
Stefan Zweig (The Burning Secret and other stories)
“
Amelia told me once about a suspicion she'd had for a while. It bothered her quite a bit. She said that Win and I had fallen ill with scarlet fever, and you made the deadly nightshade syrup, you'd concocted far more than was necessary. And you kept a cup on it on Win's nightstand, like some sort of macabre nightcap. Amelia said that if Win had died, she thought you would have taken the rest of that poison. And I've always hated you for that. Because you forced me to stay alive without the woman I loved, while you had no bloody hell intention of doing the same."
Merripen didn't answer, gave no sign that he registered Leo's words.
"Christ, man," Leo said huskily. "If you had the bollocks to die with her, don't you think you could work up the courage to live with her?
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Seduce Me at Sunrise (The Hathaways, #2))
“
In the 1890s, when Freud was in the dawn of his career, he was struck by how many of his female patients were revealing childhood incest victimization to him. Freud concluded that child sexual abuse was one of the major causes of emotional disturbances in adult women and wrote a brilliant and humane paper called “The Aetiology of Hysteria.” However, rather than receiving acclaim from his colleagues for his ground-breaking insights, Freud met with scorn. He was ridiculed for believing that men of excellent reputation (most of his patients came from upstanding homes) could be perpetrators of incest.
Within a few years, Freud buckled under this heavy pressure and recanted his conclusions. In their place he proposed the “Oedipus complex,” which became the foundation of modern psychology. According to this theory any young girl actually desires sexual contact with her father, because she wants to compete with her mother to be the most special person in his life. Freud used this construct to conclude that the episodes of incestuous abuse his clients had revealed to him had never taken place; they were simply fantasies of events the women had wished for when they were children and that the women had come to believe were real. This construct started a hundred-year history in the mental health field of blaming victims for the abuse perpetrated on them and outright discrediting of women’s and children’s reports of mistreatment by men.
Once abuse was denied in this way, the stage was set for some psychologists to take the view that any violent or sexually exploitative behaviors that couldn’t be denied—because they were simply too obvious—should be considered mutually caused. Psychological literature is thus full of descriptions of young children who “seduce” adults into sexual encounters and of women whose “provocative” behavior causes men to become violent or sexually assaultive toward them.
I wish I could say that these theories have long since lost their influence, but I can’t. A psychologist who is currently one of the most influential professionals nationally in the field of custody disputes writes that women provoke men’s violence by “resisting their control” or by “attempting to leave.” She promotes the Oedipus complex theory, including the claim that girls wish for sexual contact with their fathers. In her writing she makes the observation that young girls are often involved in “mutually seductive” relationships with their violent fathers, and it is on the basis of such “research” that some courts have set their protocols. The Freudian legacy thus remains strong.
”
”
Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)