“A woman is often a wonderful thing. And you are. But in you, as in all of them, is the indifference of Carmen, the joy in cruelty of Cleopatra, the tyrannical marble-heartedness of Katherine De Medici, and the cold glitter of all the passionless despots of men’s warm souls since sex first originated — since Eve broke the heart of humanity forever and laughed with sadistic joy at Adam sweating blood on the rack she made for him. All those things are most in you now. They are always predominant in a woman who is passionately loved but who loves not at all herself. Women like that are greatly interested in the lover’s sufferings, but to her they are a spectacle, a Roman holiday — a pageant of exciting emotions, nothing else.”
— James Thurber, The Thurber Letters: The Wit, Wisdom, and Surprising Life of James Thurber
Tagged: Woman, Sadistic, Unrequited, Suffering, Games, Love, Heartache, Indifference
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The Thurber Letters: The Wit, Wisdom, and Surprising Life of James Thurber

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