d4's Reviews > The End of the Affair
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Quotes d4 Liked

“I had to touch you with my hands, I had to taste you with my tongue; one can't love and do nothing.”
― The End of the Affair
― The End of the Affair

“But if I start believing that, then I have to believe in your God. I'd have to love your God. I'd rather love the men you slept with.”
― The End of the Affair
― The End of the Affair

“In the taxi I let my hand lie on her leg like a promise, but I had no intention of keeping my promise.”
― The End of the Affair
― The End of the Affair

“I wrote at the start that this was a record of hate, and walking there beside Henry towards the evening glass of beer, I found the one prayer that seemed to serve the winter mood: O God, You've done enough, You've robbed me of enough, I'm too tired and old to learn to love, leave me alone forever.”
― The End of the Affair
― The End of the Affair

“If two people loved, they slept together; it was a mathematical formula, tested and proved by human experience.”
― The End of the Affair
― The End of the Affair

“I could have waited years, now that I knew the end of the story. I was cold and wet and very happy. I could even look with charity towards the altar and the figure dangling there. She loves us both, I thought, but if there is to be a conflict between an image and a man, I know who will win. I could put my hand on her thigh or my mouth on her breast; he was imprisoned behind the altar and couldn't move to plead his cause.”
― The End of the Affair
― The End of the Affair

“I recognized my work for what it was--as unimportant a drug as cigarettes to get one through the weeks and years. If we are extinguished by death, as I still try to believe, what point is there in leaving some books behind any more than bottles, clothes, or cheap jewellry?”
― The End of the Affair
― The End of the Affair

“I want men to admire me, but that's a trick you learn at school--a movement of the eyes, a tone of voice, a touch of the hand on the shoulder or the head. If they think you admire them, they will admire you because of your good taste, and when they admire you, you have an illusion for a moment that there's something to admire.”
― The End of the Affair
― The End of the Affair

“If I'm a bitch and a fake, is there nobody who will love a bitch and a fake?”
― The End of the Affair
― The End of the Affair

“The sense of unhappiness is so much easier to convey than that of happiness. In misery we seem aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism: this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belongs to me and to no other. But happiness annihilates us: we lose our identity.”
― The End of the Affair
― The End of the Affair

“Insecurity is the worst sense that lovers feel; sometimes the most humdrum desireless marriage seems better. Insecurity twists meanings and poisons trust.”
― The End of the Affair
― The End of the Affair

“I couldn't help wondering, is my husband so unattractive that no woman has ever wanted him? Except me, of course. I must have wanted him, in a way, once, but I've forgotten why, and I was too young to know what I was choosing.”
― The End of the Affair
― The End of the Affair

“His question reminded me of how easy he had been to deceive, so easy that he seemed to me almost a conniver at his wife's unfaithfulness, as the man who leaves loose banknotes in a hotel bedroom connives at theft, and I hated him for the very quality which had once helped my love.”
― The End of the Affair
― The End of the Affair

“It's a strange thing to discover and to believe that you are loved when you know that there is nothing in you for anybody but a parent or a God to love.”
― The End of the Affair
― The End of the Affair

“I became aware that our love was doomed; love had turned into a love affair with a beginning and an end. I could name the very moment when it had begun, and one day I knew I should be able to name the final hour. When she left the house I couldn't settle to work. I would reconstruct what we had said to each other; I would fan myself into anger or remorse. And all the time I knew I was forcing the pace. I was pushing, pushing the only thing I loved out of my life. As long as I could make believe that love lasted I was happy; I think I was even good to live with, and so love did last. But if love had to die, I wanted it to die quickly. It was as though our love were a small creature caught in a trap and bleeding to death; I had to shut my eyes and wring its neck.”
― The End of the Affair
― The End of the Affair

“Of course,' I said, 'you know her so much better than I ever did.'
In some ways,' he said gloomily, and I knew he was thinking of the very ways in which I had known her the best.”
― The End of the Affair
In some ways,' he said gloomily, and I knew he was thinking of the very ways in which I had known her the best.”
― The End of the Affair

“And there, in that phrase, the bitterness leaks again out of my pen. What a dull lifeless quality this bitterness is. If I could I would write with love, but if I could write with love I would be another man; I would never have lost love.”
― The End of the Affair
― The End of the Affair
Reading Progress
October 22, 2008
– Shelved
November 12, 2008
– Shelved as:
read-in-2008
November 12, 2008
– Shelved as:
classics
Started Reading
November 13, 2008
– Shelved as:
favorites
November 13, 2008
–
Finished Reading
Benjamin