Tobsha Learner > Quotes

“A man who denies his past is a man who truly denies himself a future, for he refuses to know himself, and to deny knowledge of oneself is to stumble through life as handicapped as the blind mute.”
― Tobsha Learner, The Witch of Cologne

“Intelligence is power; it is the flame behind the spark of intrigue”
― Tobsha Learner, The Witch of Cologne

“Believe, my child. Faith is the food of survival.”
― Tobsha Learner, The Witch of Cologne

“Information is the mortar that both builds and destroys empires”
― Tobsha Learner, The Witch of Cologne

“No, what Great Aunt Winifred was suffering from was the persecution every happily single woman suffers: the predictable social condemnation of her independence and childlessness. Dorothy reminded herself of what she'd learned during a university course on feminist history (with a strong Marxist slant): spinsters are a threat to patriarchy.”
― Tobsha Learner, Tremble Sensual Fables of the Mystical by Tobsha Learner

“We cannot choose the times we live in. Just as, sometimes, we cannot choose whom we love.”
― Tobsha Learner, The Witch of Cologne

“I had made the fatal mistake of believing in his touch, as if the intelligence of his hands, our orgasms, the way he penetrated me, had affected him as much as it had affected me. Perhaps this is the catch cry of the egoist: I love, therefore I must be loved. Perhaps it is the Achilles' heel of my gender.”
― Tobsha Learner, Quiver: A Book of Erotic Tales

“Be bad, and if you can't be bad be worse.”
― Tobsha Learner, Quiver: A Book of Erotic Tales

“To be desired by those who are themselves highly desirable is in itself an aphrodisiac.”
― Tobsha Learner, Quiver: A Book of Erotic Tales

“There is a schism in me, between the erotic and the intimate. One, by definition, negates the other. For me the pursuit of sensuality for its own sake without the confines of emotional expectation or history is a freeing of the libido, standing outside of marriage, conception, emotional obligation. The subject becomes object. Object is the ascetic, the visual moment, no past, no future, just the moment of orgasm. This is not exclusively male territory. The encounter is, by its very nature, transitory.”
― Tobsha Learner, Quiver: A Book of Erotic Tales

“...I vow that nothing- no law, no army, no faith- will keep me from your side.”
― Tobsha Learner, The Witch of Cologne

“I think the nature of faith is love an love of the goodness in man.”
― Tobsha Learner, The Witch of Cologne

“Venus, the first star, has appeared, another child is born and the stream runs on. Water must be a celestial element for it has neither time nor history stamped upon it and is as constant as the tides of the sea or the rising of the Moon. I long for such constancy, be it in life or in comradeship. Memory is a great deceiver; it embroiders until naught is left but the glory and the pleasure. I have a noble spirit but I want to live. Tell me how to live and who to live for. I fear I shall surrender too much in love and then survive to regret it.”
― Tobsha Learner

“Love wasn't a piece of music you could play over and over again with different interpretations. It actually needed to be improvised as you went along.”
― Tobsha Learner, Quiver: A Book of Erotic Tales

“Indeed, you become what you eat. In which case I am an onion. Layered, slightly sour and guaranteed to bring tears to the eyes.”
― Tobsha Learner, The Witch of Cologne

“I am reminded of the belief of the ancient Sephardic doctor Isrealicus: that food must really be delicious if both disposition and body are to benefit.”
― Tobsha Learner, The Witch of Cologne