Alma Mahler, or, The Art of Being Loved Quotes

“Nevertheless, girls were brought up to regard their virginity as something sacrosant, prudery was the rule, hysterical breakdowns were frequent. Men, single or not, went to obtain from actresses or working girls what the women of their own milieu longed to give them but could not, for their honour stood in the way. A respectable woman, in Vienna as elsewhere, did not possess a body. If she discovered she did have one, then the devil must have got into the holy water. Once her sexuality was aroused, the irripressible violence of her instincts, her natural propensity to lewdness, would be unleashed. Women had to be defended against themselves, by education and constraint. And it was from them, insatiable women with thighs outspread, that men must be protected if they were not to lose the best of themselves. For a lustful woman diverted a man from the intellectual preoccupations of which he had the monopoly, she distracted his energies from superior accomplishments, she was the natural enemy of morality, reason, and creativity.”
― Françoise Giroud, Alma Mahler, or, The Art of Being Loved

“Finally, Vienna was the only city in the world in which artists and intellectuals made no attempt to revolt against the bourgeois élite. On the contrary, they remained for a long time perfectly integrated with it. Together they formed a coherent and complete stratum of society in which everyone knew everyone else, and all were united in cultivating ‘art for art's sake’.”
― Françoise Giroud, Alma Mahler, or, The Art of Being Loved

“The glorification of culture in all its manifestations was such that Vienna was probably the only city in the world where fathers rejoiced when their sons decided to devote their lives to music or literature.”
― Françoise Giroud, Alma Mahler, or, The Art of Being Loved

“Creative artists are probably no more difficult to seduce than plumbers, the problem is meeting them.”
― Françoise Giroud, Alma Mahler, or, The Art of Being Loved