The Painted Veil

One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one's life with her.

If a man hasn't what's necessary to make a woman love him, it's his fault, not hers. 

How strange was the ralation between parents and children! When they were small the parents adore them, and the children clung to their parents with love and admiration; a few years passed, the children grew up, and persons not of their kin were more important to their happiness than father or mother. Indifference displaced the blind and instinctive love of the past. Their meeting were a source of boredom and irritation.

And then he found her lips and the pressure of his upon them shot through her body like the flame of God. It was an ecstasy. In her dreams, in her dreams she had known this delight. What was he doing whith her now? She did not know. She was not a woman, her personality was dissolved, she was nothing but desire.