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Quote by Alison Lurie

“Some may be surprised to learn that there is this side to Professor Miner’s life. But it is a mistake to believe that plain women are more or less celibate. The error is common, since in the popular mind—and especially in the media — the idea of sex is linked with the idea of beauty.”

Quote by Alison Lurie

Book:Foreign Affairs
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Foreign Affairs

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Author

Alison Lurie
Alison Lurie

American novelist born on September 3, 1926. Alison Lurie is known for her delicate psychological portrayals and profound insights into American social culture. more

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“As has sometimes been remarked, almost any woman can find a man to sleep with if she sets her standards low enough. But what must be lowered are not necessarily standards of character, intelligence, sexual energy, good looks, and worldly achievement. Rather, far more often, she must relax her requirements for commitment, constancy, and romantic passion; she must cease to hope for declarations of love, admiring stares, witty telegrams, eloquent letters, birthday cards, valentines, candy, and flowers. No; plain women often have a sex life. What they lack, rather, is a love life.”

Page 13
Book:Foreign Affairs
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“... but as the traveller who has been once from home is wiser than he who has never left his own door step, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinise more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own. And, because of the particular problem which we set out to answer, this tale of another way of life is mainly concerned with education, with the process by which baby, arrived cultureless upon the human scene, becomes a full-fledged adult member of his or her society. The strongest light will fall upon the ways in which Samoan education, in its broadest sense, be able to turn, made newly and vividly self-conscious and self-critical, to judge anew and perhaps fashion differently the education we give our children.”

IntroductionPage 13
Book:Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilisation
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“Bipedalism is a demanding and risky strategy. It means refashioning the pelvis into a full load-bearing instrument. To preserve the required strength, the birth canal in the female must be comparatively narrow. This has two very significant immediate consequences and one longer-term one. First, it means a lot of pain for any birthing mother and greatly increased danger of fatality to mother and baby both. Moreover, to get the baby's head through such a tight space it must be born while it's brain is still small - and while the baby, therefore, is still helpless. This means long-term infant care, which in turn implies solid male-female bonding.”

Science
Book:A Short History of Nearly Everything
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