The Erotic Notebooks Quotes

“I have never ceased to be fascinated by feminine beauty. In a man, beauty, if it exists, is usually simple; a complete harmony of physical qualities and behaviour all acting together as a whole. The slightest flaw causes it to disappear. In women, beauty is more complex. Often, in my experience, the impression of beauty is created by a single aspect of a woman and from that aspect beauty appears to spread outward through every part of them, rendering them beautiful in their entirety. Sometimes such beauty comes from a smile. Sometimes from a lovely pair of eyes. Sometimes from an attitude, or a form of movement, or a sentiment of goodness or happiness which reveals itself in a single expression. Sometimes it is the curve of a body from which beauty spreads, sometimes a tone of skin, or a river of glossy hair that catches the light and seems to shine like silk. Yet were that aspect removed and not replaced by something else, so too would the beauty it had brought to light disappear. Less often, beauty comes from several sources in the same person, all working together to increase the impression of overall beauty. If one of these aspects were to disappear, unlike a man, the woman would remain beautiful, though changed.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“They made love for the reason all people should make love; for pleasure, for joy, for ecstasy, for themselves, and one another.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“I had thought that by giving myself so fully to a single fantasy, by indulging in it without restraint or hesitation, I would be cured of all fantasies, able to put them from my mind and go back to living a normal life, or to the image at least of how I imagined a normal life should be. The effect, however, was quite the opposite. Having freed myself from the fear of committing an act I had previously seen as taboo, I had not banished fantasy in general from my mind, but rather had fuelled it. Other, darker fantasies began to haunt me, more daring fantasies, more exciting and lascivious.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“I was not innocent, and I had tired of the pretence of being so, though it had amused me for a time.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“Most people hide their sentiments, their desires, their thoughts, behind veiled phrases, behind indirectness. When someone feels no need to do so, there is always something refreshing about it and a little frightening.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“How many people know anything of either their lover’s true history or their desires? Truly know, I mean, not merely suspect.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“Knowing oneself is the hardest thing of all – knowing, that is, and accepting.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“Often, in my experience, the impression of beauty is created by a single aspect of a woman and from that aspect beauty appears to spread outward through every part of them, rendering them beautiful in their entirety. Sometimes such beauty comes from a smile. Sometimes from a lovely pair of eyes. Sometimes from an attitude, or form of movement, or a sentiment of goodness or happiness which reveals itself in a single expression. Sometimes it is the curve of a body from which beauty spreads, sometimes a tone of skin, or a river of glossy hair that catches the light and seems to shine like silk. Yet were that aspect to be removed and not replaced by something else, so too would the beauty it had brought to light disappear. Less often, beauty comes from several sources in the same person, all working together to increase the impression of overall beauty. If one of these aspects were to disappear, unlike a man, the woman would remain beautiful, though changed.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“To remain with a lover permanently, or at least for any significant period of time, had always seemed to me so limiting, so much like putting up a door, albeit a beautiful, elaborately carven door, between myself and the dark, mysterious entrance to the unknown, the unseen, the unexperienced; a door that closed those things off to me. It gave happiness, in my experience, to remain with a lover over some weeks or months, to explore them, to become comfortable with them, to express myself to the fullest extent that I thought they would accept. Over too long a period, however, I always found myself beginning to yearn for those things I was not receiving; those other forms of happiness that loyalty to one person caused to become inaccessible – to be glimpsed from afar yet always untasted, untouched, unfelt.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“I think of her as much as anyone thinks of their former lovers, I suppose,” I heard him say, distantly. “Men especially never forget the erotic encounters they have enjoyed.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“Fantasies when they are lived out, are sometimes dangerous things.”
I thought for a moment and shrugged.
“It can be just as dangerous not to live them out,” I said. “They torment you, haunt you, obsess you.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“When she was gone, I felt that curious emptiness that comes after making love – when all emotion is stilled, all desire sated, all thoughts banished from mind.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“The common thread of my life has been my mistaken perception of people and myself.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“I did not judge him any more than I did myself. He wanted pleasure, it seemed to me, as did everyone else, and if he went about finding pleasure in an unconventional way, what did that matter?”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“Yes, I thought, this is what I wanted, this is what I had truly imagined; to be desirable, to be beautiful and seductive, and at the same time to be completely powerful, in control, able to give glimpses of myself to strangers that would haunt them for a long time afterwards, when I wanted, when I chose, and to conceal myself or cut those glimpses short equally as I chose.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“So few people are genuinely sincere. Most people hide their sentiments, their desires, their thoughts, behind veiled phrases, behind indirectness. When someone feels no need to do so, there is always something refreshing about it and a little frightening.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“I marvelled at the power and confidence each seemed to display; at the way they took from each other exactly what they desired, and gave with equal ardour. Their bodies seemed always to move in harmony, one with the other. There was never any awkwardness to their movements; never any uncertainty. They appeared to understand, without the need of speech, exactly what the other wanted and would do next, and so their movements flowed like a beautifully erotic piece of choreography.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“I cannot live on lust alone.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“Some people say,” I said, turning back to him, “that the mad ones make better lovers. Is it true?”
He shrugged again.
“That depends on the form of madness, I suppose. And on how you define better.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“While he played, I was in the presence of a god. When he did not, the god disappeared and I felt frustrated and angry, desperate to be in that presence again.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“To be made love to by someone who did not think me beautiful was not part of any fantasy I had ever had.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“The only thing more powerful than innocence, more attractive, is a façade of innocence beneath which the currents of desire run deep.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“I realised that I did not want only to imagine, as a normal person might be satisfied with doing. They had roused within me a wild desire to be like them, to be them, to find the pleasure that they had found – a dark forbidden pleasure – and to act with the same beautiful voracity, the same unbounded passion as they had acted, showing neither shame nor fear nor uncertainty, only the most primal of desires.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“I felt desire too; desire to be as they had been; wild and exotic and commanding and willing to worship and be worshipped.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“The question really should be, is there anything we can do to surmount our instincts and fears?”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“I was thinking, as my mind began to work once more, what adventures still lay before me; what pleasures awaited all those who had the courage to open themselves up to them.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“They are fantasies, nothing more. Everyone has fantasies, yet only the very few dare to live them out.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“There is no justice in punishing someone for their skills of perception.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“With all sensations and experiences, time and repetition remove all but the deepest discomfort or fear.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks

“I had just come in from a chilly, overcast November day. Yet when I glanced at her, she appeared as if bathed in the warm amber light of a summer’s evening.”
― Yasmine Millett, The Erotic Notebooks