life by candlelight

So, I have always been a fan of quotations. I tend to get frustrated when I cannot express myself the way I want to and so many people have done such a better job before me. I often use poetry, quotations from novels and song lyrics to express my thoughts. I have been reading this great novel called IN HIS ARMS by Camille Laurens about men and relationships. It has just been translated from the French. I thought I'd share this one passage with you:

"I like the idea of resources, the man as source. Literally, in the eighteenth century, a resource was 'something to improve an awkward or unpleasant situation.' And being alone is certainly an unpleasant situation. But then, the man suddenly appears, he drops in from nowhere and brings happiness with him. Some day my prince will come, how often I sang that song when I was little...

Or else, there's this other excerpt, which is less lighthearted and extraordinarily erotic, by none other than Paul Claudel. Amalric is talking to Yse--Amalric, as godless flesh, soulless love:

I have pleasant hands
You know perfectly well that nowhere else than with me will
you find
The strength that you need and that I am the Man

I am the man. Isn't that marvelous? A man who comes over to you and says: I am the man.

You'd then need the strength to stare back at him and say: I am the woman."

Now, that's the kind of confidence I was talking about awhile back. And I could definitely use man as a resource right now. Wink.