檳榔嶼

- It had become hard for me to continue to believe in love's promise when everywhere I turned the enchantment of power or the terror of fear overshadowed the will to love.
- There are not many public discussions of love in our culture right now. At best, popular culture is the one domain in which our longing for love is talked about.
  - Nowadays the most popular messages are those that declare the meaningless of love, its irrelevance. 
  - Youth culture today is cynical about love.
    - Harold Kushner : "I am afraid that we may be raising a generation of young people who will grow up afraid to love, afraid to give themselves completely to another person, because they will have seen how much it hurts to take the rist of loving and have it not work out. I am afraid that they will grow up looking for intimacy without risk, for pleasure without significant emotional investment. They will be so fearful of the pain of disappointment that they will forgo the possibilities of love and joy."
- Indeed, all the great movements for social justice in our society have strongly emphaiszed a love ethic. Yet young listeners remian reluctant to embrace the idea of love as a transformative force. To them, love is for the naive, the weak, the hopelessly romantic.
  - Most folks were just frightened of what might be revealed in any exploration of the meaning of love in our lives.
  - Yet whenever a single woman over forty brings up the topic of love, again and again the assumption, rooted in sexist thinking, is that she is "desperate" for a man. No one thinks she is simply passionately intellectually interested in the subject matter. No one thinks she is rigorously engaged in a philosophical undertaking wherein she is endeavoring to understand the metaphysical meaning of love in everyday life. No, she is just seen as on the road to "fatal attraction."
- Love as primarily a topic women contemplate with greater intensity and vigor than anybody else on the planet.
  - Ment theorize about love, but women are more often love's practitioners. Most men feel that tehy receive love ant therefore know what it feels like to be loved; women often feel we are in a constant state of yearning, wanting love but not receiving it.
- Words failed me when I tried to write about love. My thoughts seemed sentimental, silly, and superficial.
- Mostly mass media, particularly movies and magazines, tell us that everyone wants love but that we remain totally confused about the practice of love in everyday life.
  - In popular culture love is always the stuff of fantasy. Maybe this is why men have done most of the theorizing about love. Fantasy has primarily been their domain, both in the sphere of cultural production and in everday life.
  - Male fantasy is seen as something that can create reality, whereas femal fantasy is regarded as pure escape. 
- Reviewing the literature on love, the way in which male domination of women and children stands in the way of love.
  - Famous for work that calls attention to the "inner child", ending patriarchy is one step in the direction of love.
- Men writing about love always testify that they have received love. They speak from this position; it gives what they say authority. Women, more often that not, speak from a postion of lack, of not having received the love we long for.
  - Men often wirte about love through fantasy, through what they imagine is possible rather than what they concretely know. 
- Almost all the recent popular self-help writing by men on love, from works like "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus to John Welwood's Love and Awakening", make use of feminist perspectives on gender roles.
  - Ultimately, the authors remain wedded to belief systems, which suggest that there are basic inherent differences between women and men. In actuality, all the concrete proof indicates that while the perspectives of men and women often differ, these differences are learned characteristics, not innate, or "natural" traits.
- Given gender stereotypes that assign to women the role of feelings and being emotional and to men the role of reason and non-emotion, "real men" would shy away from any talk of love.
- We are simply afraid the desire to know too much about love will lead us closer and closer to the abyss of lovelessness.
  - It is especially hard to speak of love when what we have to say calls attention to the fact that lovelessness is more common than love, that many of us are not sure what we mean when we talk of love or how to express love.
- In the realm of the political, among the religious, in our families, and in our romantic lives, we see little indication that love informs decisions, strengthens our understanding of community, or keeps us together.
- Our nation is equally driven by sexual obsession, There is no aspect of sexuality that is not studied, talked about, or demonstrated. How-to classes exist for every dimension of sexuality, even masturbation. Yet schools for love do not exist.
  - Those of us who do not learn how to love among family are expected to experience love in romantic relationships.
- Only love can heal the wounds of the past. However, the intensity of our woundedness often leads to a closing of the heart, making it impossible for us to give or receive the love that is given to us.
  - We must face the confusion and disappointment that much of what we were taught about the nature of love makes no sense when applied to daily life.