Joshua Norland

“We now know that love is, in actuality, the pinnacle of evolution, the most compelling survival mechanism of the human species. Not because it induces us to mate and reproduce. We do manage to mate without love! But because love drives us to bond emotionally with a precious few others who offer us safe haven from the storms of life. Love is our bulwark, designed to provide emotional protection so we can cope with the ups and downs of existence. This drive to emotionally attach — to find someone to whom we can turn and say “Hold me tight” — is wired into our genes and our bodies. It is as basic to life, health, and happiness as the drives for food, shelter, or sex. We need emotional attachments with a few irreplaceable others to be physically and mentally healthy — to survive.”
― Sue Johnson, Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love

“Hot sex doesn’t lead to secure love; rather, secure attachment leads to hot sex—and also to love that lasts. Monogamy is not a myth.”
― Sue Johnson, Love Sense: The Revolutionary New Science of Romantic Relationships

“Love can begin in a thousand ways-with a glance, a stare, a whisper or smile, a compliment, or an insult. It continues with caresses and kisses, or maybe frowns and fights. It ends with silence and sadness, frustration and rage, tears, and even, sometimes, joy and laughter. It can last just hours or days, or endure through years and beyond death. It is something we look for, or it finds us. It can be our salvation or our ruin. Its presence exalts us, and its loss or absence desolates us.”
― Sue Johnson, Love Sense: The Revolutionary New Science of Romantic Relationships

“Psychiatrist Jonathan Shay in his book on the trauma of combat, Odysseus in America, reminds us that there are “two momentous human universals”: that we are all born helpless and dependent, and that we are all mortal and we know it. The only healthy way to deal with this vulnerability is to reach out and hold each other. Then, calmed and strengthened, we can walk out into the world”
― Sue Johnson, Hold Me Tight