Barbara Cohen

“Listen to me, Amin," I said slowly. "Listen to me very carefully. Nothing is the same. Nothing will ever be the same again. There lives on this earth a woman who can be my friend and my lover. Do you understand that? Do you understand what a marvelous thing that is?"

"A friend is a friend," Uthman interrupted, "and a woman is a woman. You can't have them in one person. The whole world knows that."

"If that's what the whole world knows, ...then the whole world is wrong. I believed the whole world, and I lost her.”
― Barbara Cohen, Seven Daughters and Seven Sons

“Once you start in with sex,' she replied slowly, 'it's hard to stop. It gets to be something you find it difficult to do without.'
'It's that good, huh?' Perhaps once they got past their eighteenth year, boy's hands and mouths no longer felt so damp.
'Well,' she continued, choosing her words with care, 'not necessarily at first. You see, I think you need a lover you're really fond of, and one who's very fond of you. Because, well ... in the beginning it takes a certain amount of patience. But then, once you know what you're doing, it's wonderful. Really, it's the best thing in the world. So you don't want to give it up. That's why I think it's best to wait until you're married to get started.”
― Barbara Cohen, The Innkeeper's Daughter