Whitney Otto quotes:

The truly terrible thing about this life, was not knowing what you want, but only able to recognize what you do not want. You have to spend so much time and energy trying to find it out, time that other people spent in pursuing of their desires.

Think about what binds you to your husband and he to you. Marvel at the strength of that bond, which is both abstract and concrete, spiritual and legal.

Read "The Story of O." Convince yourself that it was in fact written by a woman or someone who thinks like a woman.

She remembered her fingers threaded through his hair and his kisses in places that made her long for him years later.

All you have to go on is the faith of a kiss.

Among the things she said: "Women seem to possess all the natural gifts essential to a good portraitist ... such as personality, patience and intuition. The sitter ought to be the predominating factor in a successful portrait. Men portraitist are apt to forget this; they are inclined to lose the sitter in a maze of technique luxuriating in the cleverness and beauty of their own medium.

Why are old lovers able to become friends? Two reasons. They never truly loved each other, or they love each other still.

Among the things she said: "Women seem to possess all the natural gifts essential to a good portraitist ... such as personality, patience and intuition. The sitter ought to be the predominating factor in a successful portrait. Men portraitist are apt to forget this; they are inclined to lose the sitter in a maze of technique luxuriating in the cleverness and beauty of their own medium."

Once you love, you cannot take it back, cannot undo it. What you felt may have changed, shifted slightly, yet still remains love....

She eventually forgave him, because she understood him.

The best men tell you the truth because they think you can take it; the worst men either try to preserve you in some innocent state with their false protection, or are 'brutally honest.' When someone tells, lets you think for yourself, experience your own emotions, he is treating you as a true equal, a friend...And the best men cook for you.

The worst dream of the night, when you are parted from someone you love and you do not know exactly where he is, but you know that he is in the presence of danger. You are tormented by a desire to keep the one you love safe.