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Quote by Shannon L. Alder

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Shannon L. Alder

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“Sex is a metaphor for everything else and everything is a metaphor for sex as well. Because sex is a coming together of two weather patterns, two separate countries, two entities in a conscious state of potentially blissful crisis. Or chaos, or harmony. You’re not quite sure what’s going to happen, but it is the most catastrophic, exciting, and weakening thing that can happen to us. If we are personally involved in it, every fiber of our being is made self-conscious, or is encourages to unify on some level with others. We are delicate. We bring our damage to sexuality, we bring our hopes, we bring our self-image, we bring our world-image, we bring what we believe we are/what we believe we aren’t, our blind spots, our prejudices, our sadness. Everything comes out. A lot of people are left wanting, and confusing, and having the idea that their body is like an unloved apartment building; it’s up for grabs and it’s of absolutely no worth. If we feel that way about ourselves and if we feel that way about others, then of course, sex is nothing more than a lot of rubbing and some kind of release. But the more we are, the more we can feel, the more we can empathize, the more human we are.”

“To label someone as selfless is symptomatic of having bought the preposterous claim that a human being can have great concern for other human beings and little concern for themselves, or that, when taken to extremes, a human being can have great concern for other human beings and absolutely no concern for themselves.”

“It is humanly impossible to be selfless. As a matter of fact, human beings are inherently selfish.”

“L'insensibilità è tipica anche dei personaggi negativi di Jane Austen: Lady Catherine, Mrs Norris, Mr Collins o i Crawford. Il tema ricorre inoltre nell'opera di Henry James e negli eroi-mostro di Nabokov, Humbert, Kinbote, Van e Ada Veen. In questi romanzi l'immaginazione è equiparata all'empatia, alla capacità di immedesimazione: non possiamo vivere ciò che hanno vissuto gli altri, però in letteratura siamo in grado di comprendere anche i personaggi più mostruosi. Un bel romanzo è quello che riesce a mostrarci la complessità degli individui, e fa sì che tutti i personaggi abbiano una voce; è allora che un romanzo si può definire democratico - non perché sostiene la democrazia, ma per la sua stessa natura. L'empatia è il cuore di Gatsby, come di molti altri grandi romanzi - non c'è niente di più riprovevole che restare ciechi di fronte ai problemi e ai dolori altrui. Non vederli significa negare la loro esistenza.”