Wooing is hard work. Inevitably all of us will be crushed by disappointment from time to time when a chosen paramour rejects us with a single, cutting remark. However, we are almost certain here at Flavorpill that having a background in literature will work in your favor, whether you find yourself pining at a bar, a café, or at an awkward house party filled with graduate students clutching red plastic cups — their eyes glazing over as another person enters the throng and attempts to discuss his thesis on Levinas’s idea of irreducible relations. Rally against this stagnation, readers, and use the quotes below to find love… but don’t blame us if you get slapped.
1. Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Best way of cutting to the chase:
“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.”
2. Complete Works by D.H. Lawrence
When you’re encouraging the flame:
“Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you’ve got to say, and say it hot.”
3. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
Infamous heartbreaker, that Henry Valentine:
“What holds the world together, as I have learned from bitter experience, is sexual intercourse.”
4. Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda
You could almost pick a line at random with Neruda, really, but here’s a sure thing:
“I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”
5. Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson
Get ready to test adulterous waters:
“I used to think marriage was a plate-glass window just begging for a brick.”
6. “Don Juan” by Lord Byron
For the shy ones, sitting in the room downstairs:
“A little she strove, and much repented,
And whispering, ‘I will ne’er consent’ — consented.”
7. “Bright Star” by John Keats
Who is able to resist Keats’ spell? If anyone can, you shouldn’t be interested in them anyway:
“Pillowed upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever — or else swoon in death.”
8. Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima
When you suddenly realize your kendo teacher is thinking of molding more of your body than your mind:
“I seemed like a baby bird keeping its truly innocent animal lusts hidden under its wing. I was being tempted, not by the desire of possession, but simply by unadorned temptation itself.”
9. The Lost Poems by Dorothy Parker
To use in any bar, in any city, but probably best with Wall Street guys:
“I require only three things of a man. He must be handsome, ruthless and stupid.”
10. Just Kids by Patti Smith
It’s a risk, but it worked when Patti used it on Robert:
“Will you pretend you’re my boyfriend?”
11. Delta of Venus by Anaïs Nin
For people who insist they enjoy “erotica” and not porn:
“He was now in that state of fire that she loved. She wanted to be burnt.”
12. A Primate’s Memoir by Robert Sapolsky
For scientifically-minded perverts:
“We’re getting along so well; I trust you so much for this one second that I’m going to let you yank on me.”
13. Male Colors by Gary Leupp
This one will work in most gay bars or history departments:
“Excuse me for talking to you this way, master, but isn’t your bottom hard to please?”
14. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
For chrissakes, please do not attempt on anyone under 18:
“It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.”
15. My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
To the woman in the blue dress:
“Let me first state forthright that contrary to what we’ve often read in books and heard from preachers, when you are a woman, you don’t feel like the Devil. ”
16. The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
This man was once married to Padma Lakshmi. He must have done something right:
“For a fellow who’s not to much to look at, you have the instincts of a champion.”
17. Alien Hearts by Guy de Maupassant
To the man or woman who will in no way break your heart:
“You’ll find that my coquetry is quite impartial, which allows me to keep my friends.”
18. Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
Let’s be honest here:
“I’m the fortieth ugliest man in this bar. But so what! So what!… Isn’t this how people used to fall in love?”
19. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
When confronted with your first threesome:
“The signore…wishes her to begin at the beginning.”
20. Sula by Toni Morrison
Saying it like it is:
“What do you mean take him away? I didn’t kill him, I just fucked him.”
21. London Fields by Martin Amis
When a clear sense of foreboding conquers all:
“You know how it is when two souls meet in a burst of ecstatic volubility, with hearts tickling to hear and to tell, to know everything, to reveal everything, the shared reverence for the other’s otherness, a feeling of solitude radiantly snapped by full contact — all that?”
22. The Ask by Sam Lipsyte
When it’s time to get fruity:
“Stuff me in a tutu and let’s screen experimental videos all day.”
23. Couples by John Updike
Sometimes you have to be the bait:
“The first breathe of adultery is the freest.”
24. Where I’m Calling From by Raymond Carver
When you are the last man at a bar, talking to the last sympathetic woman:
“We were so intimate once upon a time I can’t believe it now. The memory of being that intimate with somebody. We were so intimate I could puke. I can’t imagine ever being that intimate with somebody else. I haven’t been.”
25. “First Love” by Isaac Babel
Who enjoys saucy French words? Hopefully, your admirer does:
“She would lift her peignoir above her knees and say to her husband: ‘Give baby a kiss…’”
26. Foxfire by Joyce Carol Oates
When you meet your first baby dyke:
“Like they’re pretending not to know who I am: I’m Legs Sadovsky I’m FOXFIRE I don’t fuck around with guys.”
27. “Tonka” by Robert Musil
When you think coming clean about your anxiety will get you through the difficult parts:
“You see how wrong I go, how ridiculous I’m making myself in your eyes by keeping on guessing wrong like this! Doesn’t that help you to come out with it? Come on now!”
28. “Fireworks” by Richard Ford
When you need to switch identities:
“I realized I loved you, and I didn’t want to be married to somebody I didn’t love. I wanted to be married to you. It isn’t all that complicated.”
29. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
When honesty is the best policy:
“Are you happiest and saddest right now that you’ve ever been?” “Of course I am.” “Why?” “Because nothing makes me happier and nothing makes me sadder than you.”
30. Pussy, King of the Pirates by Kathy Acker
For the post-punk, French critical theory set:
“If you ask me what I want, I’ll tell you. I want everything.”
Comments (47)
Oh hell yes. I just did myself.
[...] Continue reading 30 Literary Quotes That Just Might Get You Laid… [...]
Salman Rushdie was married to Padma, sure, but she also fucked Adam Dell, so how cool can she really be?
What about Andrew Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress”:
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv’d virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am’rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp’d power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
No Baudelaire?
Remember, my soul, the sight of a dear
Summer’s dawn, where the path split
A corpse on a bed of rocks, feet
Splayed like a prostitute, dripping
And bubbling poisons, baring
Her chest with that tired, familiar
Look — and filled with a breath…
Isaac Babel’s “She would lift her peignoir above her knees and say to her husband: ‘Give baby a kiss…’” is a classic. That’s how I like my women.
Great, except replace the entire list with “Yes Yes” by Charles Bukowski.
Or Molly Bloom’s soliloquy.
May I include two by Robert Herrick?
UPON JULIA’S CLOTHES
WHENAS in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.
Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free ;
O how that glittering taketh me !
–
DELIGHT IN DISORDER
A SWEET disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness :
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction :
An erring lace which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher :
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly :
A winning wave (deserving note)
In the tempestuous petticoat :
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility :
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.
I have an intense desire to return to the womb… Anybody’s – Woody Allen
Love alone can make the fallen angel rise,
For it takes Two Together to enter Paradise.
“I can Learn to resist anything but temptation”-Oscar Wilde (also quoted in the Rush song resist)
For more killer love lines to drop from Neruda, check out The Essential Neruda
http://www.redpoppy.net/pablo_neruda.php
Great post, gracias
Blind date gone bad….”I’ve had a wonderful evening, unfortunately tonight wasn’t it”…Groucho Marx
“A man that wouldn’t cheat for a poke don’t want one bad enough.” Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
If anyone tried to proposition me with a line from Lolita, I would deck them.
James Joyce » Ulysses » Episode 18 – Penelope
as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down Jo me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
How about that Wyatt one? I always hate Henry8th for killing him. Whereas i hate Eliz1st for the biggest massacre ever committed on british soil (the one in the north). Enough politics, back to sex, remembering better times when things are going badly and he might lose ‘is ‘ead…
They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.
Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small;
Therewithall sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, “dear heart, how like you this?”
It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
But all is turned thorough my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also, to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served
I would fain know what she hath deserved.
Oh, and i can’t stand Musil after reading his memoir about repeatedly gangraping a younger boy who ‘loved it really despite crying and claiming he didn’t’ at boarding school and how this made him an ubermensch who was destined etc. Celine is my favourite author ever and he was a nazi (i didn’t realise at first:( ) but even i have limits
Um, Maia, Henry VIII did NOT kill Wyatt. Not in real life anyway. Surrey, yes; Wyatt, no – he died of illness. Also, you separated the stanzas wrong. I’m just saying that if one wishes to be indignant, one ought to be right about the cause.
Maia, very good choice on the poem front, but please be careful what you say historically. There were many massacres more brutal than any Elizabeth I perpetrated in the north. In terms of history, that was barely significant. Such claims entirely disregard so many events: literal massacres like the Harrying of the North, or sadly weighted battles like Culloden to start. Oh and not forgetting the continual tone of fear throughout the Tudor period (the harsh revenge taken on the north by Henry VIII and religious persecution throughout).
Also, ‘To His Coy Mistress’ and the Baudelaire examples are more than a little odd. I’d probably run in fear if either were quoted at me…
Wine comes in at the mouth
and love comes in at the eye
that’s all we shaw know for truth
before we grow old and die
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh
Yeats
[...] what with Valentine’s coming up, I leave with this fantastic link to some of the most awesome lines in [...]
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Let’s not forget the famous movie lines: “I’ll have what she’s having!” This is so timely with Valentine’s Day nearly here:-) Thnx. Who knows how many happy romances you might be creating?? Also, whilst we’re on the literary “sex” theme, you might like to check out the blog post on “Building Tension in Writing is like Foreplay in Sex!” @ aussiewriters
WDT – That’s a damn good one. I think I’m ready to go just from that.
for the best post-coital line, it’s hard to beat Woody Allen:
“As Balzac said, ‘There goes another novel’.”
This column bewilders me, like Jekyll and Hyde. The quotes are poetic, desperately beautiful, well-lived. A truly great list in love and the English language. The editorial comments are like a snarky teenager who’s sure no one deserves to get “laid”. Why are you hiding your soul under a bushel?
[...] those lines, Flavorwire has published “30 Literary Quotes That Might Just Get You Laid.” Here are my [...]
All excellent. Except for the Neruda quote. “I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.” What? Make you break out?
I didn’t know Lawrence wrote a book called “Complete Works”. Are you sure you didn’t just idiotly steal this list from somewhere and fail to give credit? Because you seem like you might be an idiot.
“Kiss me and you’ll see how important I am.”
That is Sylvia Plath.
[...] From 30 Literary Quotes That Just Might Get You Laid [...]
“What sex is, we don’t know, but it must be some sort of fire. For it always communicates a sense of warmth, of glow. And when the glow becomes a pure shine, then we feel the sense of beauty.”
– D. H. LAWRENCE
[...] woo your date with these literary quotes compiled by Flavorpill. They recommend this line from Oscar Wilde: “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to [...]
Every rose has it’s thorn?
Are you hungry? How about a tube steak smothered in underwear?
“I’d buy a pedestal and put her on it if I thought she’d stay. But she’d either climb down or fall off, I’m not sure which.” –Rex Stout
[...] —From Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer (via Flavorpill’s 30 lines to get you laid) [...]
[...] has been a lot of talk about books and sex in this space lately, and it’s not just because of yesterday’s [...]
[...] kan, mits hij zijn kaarten goed schudt, indruk maken. In de kroeg heb je een arsenaal aan literaire openingszinnen paraat, thuis staat een mooie boekenkast vol klassiekers (of toch niet?) en anders kun je nog [...]
Bright Star by John Keats,depiction of romance is uncomparable.It is feeling good to readers while they are go through these lines.
[...] Miller’s magnificent lady-magnet, Henry Valentine, comes in with a bullet at number 3, in FlavorWire.com’s top 30 literary pulling lines of all time. I thought this was the sexiest line ever; I said it to my friend. She was nonplussed. I moved on [...]
[...] 30 chat-up lines from literature [...]
[...] honor of Valentine’s day, Flavorpill has a very clever list of the top 50 literary quotesfor a hot [...]
[...] honor of Valentine’s day, Flavorpill has a very clever list of the top 50 literary quotes for a hot [...]
[...] honor of Valentine’s day, Flavorpill has a very clever list of the top 50 literary quotes for a hot [...]
How about a Rochester line? “Have you a sponge in your room?”
[...] – This was posted last year but I just found it recently: 30 Literary Quotes That Just Might Get You Laid. [...]
Post a new comment