"I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living."
— Anaïs Nin

"Even when I'm dead, I'll swim through the Earth,
like a mermaid of the soil, just to be next to your bones. "
— Jeffrey McDaniel

"All my life I've thought I needed someone to complete me, now I know I need to belong to myself."
— Sue Monk Kidd (The Mermaid Chair)

"But one kiss levitates above all the others. The
intersection of function and desire. The I do kiss.
The I’ll love you through a brick wall kiss.
Even when I’m dead, I’ll swim through the Earth,
like a mermaid of the soil, just to be next to your bones."
— Jeffrey McDaniel

"A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him up for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown."
— William Butler Yeats

"When you're feeling lonely
and no one is around
Remember to look inside yourself
and a best friend will be found"
— Stephen Cosgrove (Maynard's Mermaid)

"Tell me the story, Pew. . . .
It was a woman.
You always say that.
There's always a woman somewhere, child; a princess, a witch, a stepmother, a mermaid, a fairy godmother, or one as wicked as she is beautiful, or as beautiful as she is good.
Is that the complete list?
Then there is the woman you love.
Who's she?
That's another story."
— Jeanette Winterson

""Reading the right sorts of books can prepare one, mentally, for a heck of a lot in this world. I, myself, feel fully prepared to meet an alien, time travel, visit a parallel dimension, find a mermaid in the ocean, live in a world where magic has supplanted technology, and survive the apocalypse... hopefully not ending up in a dystopia.""
— Spring Lea Henry

"We who are dominant tend to think of that aspect of being a werewolf as rank: who is obeyed, who is to obey. Dominant and submissive. But it is also who is to protect and who is to be protected. A submissive wolf is not incapable of protecting himself: he can fight, he can kill as readily as any other. But a submissive doesn't feel the need to fight -- not the way a dominant does. They are a treasure in a pack. A source of purpose and of balance. Why does a dominant exist? To protect those beneath him, but protecting a submissive is far more rewarding because a submissive will never wait until you are wounded or your back is turned to see if you are truly dominant to him. Submissive wolves can be trusted. And they unite the pack with the goal of keeping them safe and cared for."
— Patricia Briggs

"It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages."
— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"I love mankind, it's people I can't stand."
— Charles M. Schulz

"Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own."
— Robert A. Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land)

"A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you."
— Elbert Hubbard

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."
— Marilyn Monroe

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them."
— Mother Teresa

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."
— Laozi

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference."
— Elie Wiesel

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
— Martin Luther King Jr.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
— Marianne Williamson (A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles)

"Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you've never been hurt and live like it's heaven on Earth."
— Mark Twain

"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams."
— Dr. Seuss

"Good sex is like good bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand."
— Mae West

"It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
— C.S. Lewis (Weight of Glory and Other Addresses)

"If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library."
— Frank Zappa

"No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor. "
— Betty Friedan

"Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a person's sexual choice is the result and sum of their fundamental convictions. Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life. Show me the person they sleep with and I will tell you their valuation of themselves. No matter what corruption they're taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which they cannot perform for any motive but their own enjoyment - just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity! - an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exultation, only on the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces them to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and accept their real ego as their standard of value. They will always be attracted to the person who reflects their deepest vision of themselves, the person whose surrender permits them to experience - or to fake - a sense of self-esteem .. Love is our response to our highest values - and can be nothing else."
— Ayn Rand

"Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn't!"
— George Bernard Shaw

"Don't wreck a sublime chocolate experience by feeling guilty.
Chocolate isn't like premarital sex. It will not make you pregnant.
And it always feels good."
— Lora Brody

"Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions."
— Woody Allen

"Every relationship is fundamentally a power struggle, and the individual in power is whoever likes the other person less."
— Chuck Klosterman (Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto)

"A man can sleep around, no questions asked, but if a woman makes nineteen or twenty mistakes she's a tramp.
"
— Joan Rivers

"Anyone who is in love is making love the whole time, even when they're not. When two bodies meet, it is just the cup overflowing. They can stay together for hours, even days. They begin the dance one day and finish it the next, or--such is the pleasure they experience--they may never finish it. No eleven minutes for them."
— Paulo Coelho (Eleven Minutes: A Novel)

"Ducking for apples -- change one letter and it's the story of my life."
— Dorothy Parker

"There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die."
— Hunter S. Thompson (Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame & Degradation in the '80's)

"We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are. Sane or insane. Saints or sex addicts. Heroes or victims. Letting history tell us how good or bad we are. Letting our past decide our future. Or we can decide for ourselves. And maybe it's our job to invent something better."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Asfixia / Choke)

"I thought we were a real love relationship. I did. I was very invested in love, but it was just this long long sex thing that could end at any moment because after all, it's just about getting off. Almost all the time, you tell yourself you're loving somebody when you're just using them. This only looks like love."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)

"When authorities warn you of the sinfulness of sex, there is an important lesson to be learned. Do not have sex with the authorities."
— Matt Groening (Life in Hell 1993-1994 Fun Calendar)

"He'd noticed that sex bore some resemblance to cookery: it fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were really hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination - but at the end of the day they'd settle quite happily for egg and chips. If it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato."
— Terry Pratchett (The Fifth Elephant)

"Anyone who calls it "sexual intercourse" can't possibly be interested in actually doing it. You might as well announce you're ready for lunch by proclaiming, "I'd like to do some masticating and enzyme secreting.""
— Allan Sherman

"We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation."
— Lily Tomlin

"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman."
— Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex)

"The culture of women in the church today is crippled by some very pervasive lies. "To be spiritual is to be busy. To be spiritual is to be disciplined. To be spiritual is to be dutiful." No, to be spiritual is to be in Romance with God. The desire to be romanced lies deep in the heart of every women. It is for such that you were made. Are you ARE romanced, and ever will be."
— John & Staci Elderedge

"
Aren't most romance heros, or heros in fiction of any kind, generally superior to real men? Same goes for heroines and real women. "
— Nora Roberts

"Men always want to be a woman’s first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about these things. What (women) like is to be a man’s last romance."
— Oscar Wilde

"I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been a victim of my own optimism."
— Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia)

"Lying on the floor, with the carved panels of the ceiling flickering dimly above, I found myself thinking that I had always heretofore assumed that the tendency of eigh­teenth-century ladies to swoon was due to tight stays; now I rather thought it might be due to the idiocy of eighteenth-century men. "
— Diana Gabaldon (Dragonfly in Amber)

"Do you want to know why men name their penis? So the most important decisions in their life aren't made by a stranger."
— Linda Howard (After The Night)

"You keep runnin that mouth and I'm goin to take you back there and screw you."
— Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men)

"'Well, that depends, I suppose. I heard someone once say that men dance the same way they have sex. So, if you want everyone here to think you're the kind of guy who just sits around and—'
He stood up. 'Let's dance.' "
— Richelle Mead (Succubus Blues)

"When it comes to men who are romantically interested in you, it’s really simple. Just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do."
— Randy Pausch