If my hands tremble with desire, they tremble likewise when I reach for the chalice on Sunday, and if lust makes me run and caper, it is no stronger a force than that which brings me to my knees to say thanksgivings and litanies. What can this capricious skin be but a blessing?
—John Cheever
The mattress, curved like a preacher's palm asking for witnesses in His name's sake, enclosed them each and every night and muffled their whispering, old-time love.
—Toni Morrison
The absolute yearning of one human body for another particular one and its indifference to substitutes is one of life's major mysteries.
—Iris Murdoch