fractures

from the dying animal by philip roth

"because only when you fuck is everything that you dislike in life and everything by which you are defeated in life purely, if momentarily, revenged. only then are you most cleanly alive and most cleanly yourself. it's not the sex that's the corruption - it's the rest. sex isn't just friction and shallow fun. sex is also the revenge on death. don't forget death. don't ever forget it. yes, sex too is limited in its power. i know very well how limited. but tell me, what power is greater?"

"see it from a professional point of view. you violated the law of aesthetic distance. you sentimentalized the aesthetic experience with this girl - you personalized it, you sentimentalized it, and you lost the sense of separation essential to your enjoyment. . . i'm not against it because it's disgusting. i'm against it because it's falling in love. the only obsession everyone wants: 'love.' people think that in falling in love they make themselves whole? the platonic union of souls? i think otherwise. i think you're whole before you begin. and that love fractures you. you're whole, and then you're cracked open. she was a foreign body introduced into your wholeness. and for a year and a half you struggled to incorporate it. but you'll never be whole until you expel it. you either get rid of it or incorporate it through self-distortion."