Gicev

“I can easily imagine belonging to one man for my entire life, but he would have to be a whole man, a man who would dominate me, who would subjugate me by his inate strength. And every man—I know this very well—as soon as he falls in love becomes weak, pliable, ridiculous. He puts himself into the woman's hands, kneels down before her. The only man whom I could love permanently would be he before whom I should have to kneel.”
― Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Venus in Furs

“Love?' he asked himself, giving no sense of recognition for that word in the dictionary of his mind. It was the only battle he had lost in life, the only thing that had been snatched away from him, before he could even claim it.”
― Faraaz Kazi, Truly, Madly, Deeply

“I love her passionately with a morbid intensity; madly as one can only love a woman who never responds to our love with anything but an eternally uniform, eternally calm, stony smile.”
― Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Venus in Furs

“The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped,
deserves to be whipped.”
― Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Venus in Furs