quotations about sex
"Sex" is as important as eating or drinking and we ought to allow the one appetite to be satisfied with as little restraint or false modesty as the other.
MARQUIS DE SADE
L'Histoire de Juliette
The sexual life of adult women is a "dark continent" for psychology.
SIGMUND FREUD
The Question of Lay Analysis
The thing is, most of the time when you're coming pretty close to doing it with a girl -- a girl that isn't a prostitute or anything, I mean -- she keeps telling you to stop. The trouble with me is, I stop. Most guys don't. I can't help it. You never know whether they really want you to stop, or whether they're just scared as hell, or whether they're just telling you to stop so that if you do go through with it, the blame'll be on you, not them. Anyway, I keep stopping.
J. D. SALINGER
The Catcher in the Rye
Man and woman, love, what is it? A cork and a bottle.
JAMES JOYCE
Ulysses
There is a no man's land between sex and love, and it alters in the night. We go to sleep convinced we are in one state, we awaken in the other, and murderous emotions patrol the ever-changing border.
NORMAN MAILER
The Deer Park
If there is a true secret to the universe, it is this ... these first few seconds of warmth and entry and complete acceptance by one's beloved.
DAN SIMMONS
The Rise of Endymion
Sex is all the enchantment required. Do men find women so enchanting once the sex is taken out? Does anyone find anyone that enchanting unless they have sexual business with them? Who else are you enchanted by? Nobody.
PHILIP ROTH
The Dying Animal
Last time I was inside a woman was when I visited the Statue of Liberty.
WOODY ALLEN
Crimes and Misdemeanors
Electric flesh-arrows traversing the body. A rainbow of color strikes the eyelids. A foam of music falls over the ears. It is the gong of the orgasm.
ANAIS NIN
attributed, French Writers of the Past
If sex is supposed to be satisfying and anxiety-free once we are safely ensconced in marriage, how come that's when many of us stop wanting it?
DAVID MORRIS SCHNARCH
Passionate Marriage
Sex expression is as vital a factor in human life as food and air.
EMMA GOLDMAN
Living My Life
Good sex is impossible to write about. Lawrence and Updike have given it their all, and the result is still uneasy and unsure. It may be that good sex is something fiction just can't do -- like dreams. Most of the sex in my novels is absolutely disastrous. Sex can be funny, but not very sexy.
MARTIN AMIS
interview, Washington Post, November 7, 2003
"Sex" is a great, rich, complicated word. Metaphorically, it is a descriptive adjective that defines who we are; a noun that describes an endless array of people, places, and things; and a verb that conjures up activities that people all over the world find pleasurable. More than a word, it is a topic sentence for dissent and political posturing. It is a plot for complicated stories of interaction and intrigue, sometimes in our own families. It is a hypothesis for experimentation and curiosity. It is the grist of advertising copywriters, poets, and novelists. We desire sex, we deplore it, we regret it, or we do it, but whatever our stance, it remains on our minds.
SUSAN LIEBERMAN
Venus in Blue Jeans
As a person, therefore, would have no enjoyment of drinking, if he had not previously known thirst, so he who is unacquainted with the longings of love has no experience of the most ravishing pleasures.
XENOPHON
Hiero
I like sex for breakfast, kid. I eat early and often.
KAREN MARIE MONING
Iced
Sex was like Disneyland to her: an allotment of organized wonders and legal mischief.
MARTIN AMIS
The Rachel Papers
Sex without love is an empty experience ... but as empty experiences go, it's one of the best.
WOODY ALLEN
Love and Death
Nothing was happening in my marriage. I nicknamed our water bed Lake Placid.
PHYLLIS DILLER
attributed, The Mammoth Book of Comic Quotes
Having sex is like eating a Big Mac, but making love is like getting a whole Extra value Meal.
ANONYMOUS
We have inherited the term "sexual revolution" from those who first coined it in the 1960s, and in adopting their phrase we have perpetuated some of the confusions of that era. We continue to hear echoes of danger in the word "revolution." We continue to conflate very different impulses and outcomes. This received language to revolution has made it much more difficult for us to understand and discuss the roles and meanings of sex in contemporary America.
BETH BAILEY
Sex in the Heartland