For the Power of Words, I give you Exhibit A: Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman, The Crucible) and Marilyn Monroe.
As Exhibit B: Salman Rushdie (The Satanic Verses, Midnight’s Children) and Padma Lakshmi.
I could go on.
Here are ten great lines from literature that just might help you get lucky, too.
1. “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.”
– From The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
2. “What holds the world together, as I have learned from bitter experience, is sexual intercourse.”
– From Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
3. “I used to think marriage was a plate-glass window just begging for a brick.”
– From Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson
4. “I seemed like a baby bird keeping its truly innocent animal lusts hidden under its wing. I was being tempted, not by the desire of possession, but simply by unadorned temptation itself.”
– From Confessions of a Mask by Yuko Mishima (yep, that’s really him)
5. “If you ask me what I want, I’ll tell you. I want everything.”
– From Pussy, King of the Pirates by Kathy Acker
6. “The first breath of adultery is the freest.”
-From Couples by John Updike
7. “Stuff me in a tutu and let’s screen experimental videos all day.”
– From The Ask by Sam Lipstye
8. “He was now in that state of fire that she loved. She wanted to be burnt.”
– From Delta of Venus by Anais Nin
9. “I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”
– From Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda
10. “A little she strove, and much repented, / And whispering, ‘I will ne’er consent’ — consented.”
– From Don Juan by Lord Byron