Fire and Knowledge

A change of environment is the traditional fallacy upon which doomed loves, and lungs, rely.

—Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (Library of America, 1996; orig 1955), p. 225.

The dominant story of our age, undoubtedly, is that of adultery and divorce. This is true both literally and figuratively: The dominant tendency of our age is the breaking of faith and the making of divisions among things that once were joined.

–Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition (2000), p. 133

Always keep score in games, never in love.

–Anne Dillard, “Aces and Eights,” in Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters (1983), 169

The real issue [I had with] the Christian community was that [love] was conditional. You were loved, but if you had questions, questions about whether the Bible was true or America was a good country or whether last week’s sermon was good, you were not so loved. You were loved in word, but there was, without question, a social commodity that was being withheld from you until you shaped up.

–Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality (2003), p. 214

Naomi Wolf talks about “The Porn Myth” — pornography isn’t turning men into psychotic rapists, but rather turning them off to normal sexuality. An excerpt:

The onslaught of porn is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as “porn-worthy.” Far from having to fend off porn-crazed young men, young women are worrying that as mere flesh and blood, they can scarcely get, let alone hold, their attention….

Does all this sexual imagery in the air mean that sex has been liberated—or is it the case that the relationship between the multi-billion-dollar porn industry, compulsiveness, and sexual appetite has become like the relationship between agribusiness, processed foods, supersize portions, and obesity?….

The reason to turn off the porn might become, to thoughtful people, not a moral one but, in a way, a physical- and emotional-health one; you might want to rethink your constant access to porn in the same way that, if you want to be an athlete, you rethink your smoking. The evidence is in: Greater supply of the stimulant equals diminished capacity….

If you associate orgasm with your wife, a kiss, a scent, a body, that is what, over time, will turn you on; if you open your focus to an endless stream of ever-more-transgressive images of cybersex slaves, that is what it will take to turn you on. The ubiquity of sexual images does not free eros but dilutes it.

Here’s a tip I’ve never used: I understand you can learn a great deal about girldom by reading Pride and Prejudice, and I own a copy, but I have never read it. I tried. It was given to me by a girl with a little note inside that read: What is in this book is the heart of a woman. I am sure the heart of a woman is pure and lovely, but the first chapter of said heart is hopelessly boring. Nobody dies at all. I keep the book on my shelf because girls come into my room, sit on my couch, and eye the books on the adjacent shelf. You have a copy of Pride and Prejudice, they exclaim in a gentle sigh and smile. Yes, I say. I do.

–Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality (2003), p. 140

Our “behavior” will not be changed long with self-discipline, but fall in love and a human will accomplish what he never thought possible.

–Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality (2003), p. 79

“However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship.”

–La Rochefoucauld, quoted by Joseph Epstein, Friendship (2006), p. 55