Esther Perel Quotes.

1. "Trouble looms when monogamy is no longer a free expression of loyalty but a form of enforced compliance."
- Quote by Esther Perel

2. "...this is the first time in the history of humankind where we are trying to experience sexuality in the long term, not because we want 14 children, for which we need to have even more because many of them won't make it, and not because it is exclusively a woman's marital duty. This is the first time that we want sex over time about pleasure and connection that is rooted in desire. So what sustains desire, and why is it so difficult? And at the heart of sustaining desire in a committed relationship, I think is the reconciliation of two fundamental human needs... So reconciling our need for security and our need for adventure into one relationship, or what we today like to call a passionate marriage, used to be a contradiction in terms. Marriage was an economic institution in which you were given a partnership for life in terms of children and social status and succession and companionship. But now we want our partner to still give us all these things, but in addition I want you to be my best friend and my trusted confidant and my passionate lover to boot, and we live twice as long. So we come to one person, and we basically are asking them to give us what once an entire village used to provide: Give me belonging, give me identity, give me continuity, but give me transcendence and mystery and awe all in one. Give me comfort, give me edge. Give me novelty, give me familiarity. Give me predictability, give me surprise. And we think it's a given, and toys and lingerie are going to save us with that."
- Quote by Esther Perel

3. "because the erotic frisson is such that the kiss that you only imagine giving,can be as powerful and as enchanting as hours of actual lovemaking. As Marcel Proust said, it's our imagination that is responsible for love, not the other person."
- Quote by Esther Perel

4. "The body often contains emotional truths that words can too easily gloss over."
- Quote by Esther Perel

5. "Modern relationships are cauldrons of contradictory longings: safety and excitement, grounding and transcendence, the comfort of love and the heat of passion We want it all, and we want it with one person. Reconciling the domestic and the erotic is a delicate balancing act that we achieve intermittently at best. It requires knowing your partner while remaining open to the unknown, cultivating intimacy that respects privacy. Separateness and togetherness alternate, or proceed in counterpoint. Desire resists confinement, and commitment mustn't swallow freedom whole."
- Quote by Esther Perel

6. "The ability to go anywhere in our imagination is a pure expression of individual freedom. It is a creative force that can help us transcend reality."
- Quote by Esther Perel

7. "We see what we want to see, what we can tolerate seeing, and our partner does the same. Neutralizing each other’s complexity affords us a kind of manageable otherness. We narrow down our partner, ignoring or rejecting essential parts when they threaten the established order of our coupledom. We also reduce ourselves, jettisoning large chunks of our personalities in the name of love."
- Quote by Esther Perel

8. "It’s hard to feel attracted to someone who has abandoned her sense of autonomy."
- Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence

9. "Like dreams and works of art, fantasies are far more than what they appear to be on the surface. They’re complex psychic creations whose symbolic content mustn’t be translated into literal intent. Think poetry, not prose,"
- Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence

10. "Love is an exercise in selective perception, even a delicious deception as well, though who cares about that in the beginning?"
- Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence