Life Is Quotes (page 229)
Is it true that you insisted you knew no difference in beauty between some brutal sensual stunt and any great deed, even the sacrifice of life for mankind? Is it true that you found a coincidence in beauty, a sameness of pleasure at both poles?
...You married out of a passion for torture, out of a passion for remorse, out of moral sensuality.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Is that the basis of friendship? Is it as reactive as that? Do we respond only to people who seem to find us interesting?... Do we all buzz or ring or light up when people press our vanity buttons, and only then? Can I think of anyone in my whole life whom I have liked without his first showing signs of liking me?
Wallace Stegner