#philia

The monkish vows keep us far from that sink of vice that is the female body, but often they bring us close to other errors. Can I finally hide from myself the fact that even today my old age is still stirred by the noonday demon when my eyes, in choir, happen to linger on the beardless face of a novice, pure and fresh as a maiden's? ↗

— Umberto Eco

#hypocrisy #lust #misogyny #monks #pedophilia

How lucky country children are in these natural delights that lie ready to their hand! Every season and every plant offers changing joys. As they meander along the lane that leads to our school all kinds of natural toys present themselves for their diversion. The seedpods of stitchwort hang ready for delightful popping between thumb and finger, and later the bladder campion offers a larger, if less crisp, globe to burst. In the autumn, acorns, beechnuts, and conkers bedizen their path, with all their manifold possibilities of fun. In the summer, there is an assortment of honeys to be sucked from bindweed flowers, held fragile and fragrant to hungry lips, and the tiny funnels of honeysuckle and clover blossoms to taste. ↗

— Miss Read

#children #country #countryside #nature #plants

The laws of genetics apply even if you refuse to learn them. ↗

— Allison Plowden

#hemophilia #royal-family #family

Headline?" he asked. "'Swing Set Needs Home,'" I said. "'Desperately Lonely Swing Set Needs Loving Home,'" he said. "'Lonely, Vaguely Pedophilic Swing Set Seeks the Butts of Children,'" I said. ↗

— John Green

#humor #humour #internet #john-green #pedophile

There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love. ↗

— Christopher Morley

#books #love

Don't you ever get tired of reading?" she asked. "You could hardly be called good company! Don't you know that, with women, you're supposed to make conversation?" she added; her half smile was perhaps meant to be ironic, though to Amedeo, who at that moment would have paid anything rather than give up his novel, it seemed downright threatening. ↗

— Italo Calvino

#lectophilia #mixed-marriages-never-work #reading #relationship-nightmare #run-away