Henry Le Nav

“But I believe that the grand unifying theory that explains the paradox of tragedy is (like most such theories) deceptively simple: We don’t actually welcome tragedy per se. What we like are sad and beautiful things—the bitter together with the sweet. We don’t thrill to lists of sad words, for example, or slide shows of sad faces (researchers have actually tested this). What we love is elegiac poetry, seaside cities shrouded in fog, spires reaching through the clouds. In other words: We like art forms that express our longing for union, and for a more perfect and beautiful world. When we feel strangely thrilled by the sorrow of “Moonlight Sonata,” it’s the yearning for love that we’re experiencing—fragile, fleeting, evanescent, precious, transcendent love.”
― Susan Cain, Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole

“Before going to bed, I sometimes wander out onto the terrace to view the night sky. Most of the time I can’t see it; the urban incandescence is so bright that no stars are visible. But the windows across the courtyard are glowing. Behind them, people are watering plants, baking bread, fixing radiators, flipping television channels. Other windows are curtained, and beyond them, people might even be making love. Good for them. I wish them well. It’s not easy to be successfully sexual these days, and perhaps it never was. I do what I can to help.”
― Avodah K. Offit, Night Thoughts: Reflections of a Sex Therapist

“But I imagine somewhere in one of the darkened windows there’s a couple who are still in their first throes of passion on this weeknight at 9: 00 P.M. I imagine they’ll stay up most of the night, lost in each other’s presence and wondering if this might be for real. It’s entirely possible this couple will never need my help. But while I have them in mind, I silently make them the following wish:

Pay attention to this moment. It won’t come again. Moments like these have their mission, which is to inspire you to love. Love each other deeply and well. Be patient and kind to each other. In the place where you came together just now, you were as honest as small children, and just as vulnerable. The small children of your inner hearts will show you the way to heaven, if you let them. Let them run all the way up to heaven together, holding hands.”
― Stephen Snyder, M.D., Love Worth Making: How to Have Ridiculously Great Sex in a Lasting Relationship

“Harold believed that beauty was what happened between people, was in a sense the trace of what had happened, so he in truth found her, though minutely creased and puckered and sagging, more beautiful than the unused girl whose ruins she thought of herself as inhabiting. Such generosity of perception returned upon himself; as he lay with Janet, lost in praise, Harold felt as if a glowing tumor of eternal life were consuming the cells of his mortality.”
― John Updike, Couples