Lovers and mystics are familiar with this sense of…

“My life, as it passes thus, was indeed hateful to me, and it was during sleep alone that I could taste joy. O blessed…

— Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Taste the joy That springs from labor.

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“All he wanted was to somehow get there, and taste that joy which everyone but him seemed to be experiencing.”

— Christina McKenna

When a friend, then, indulges in the joy unburdening a secret on to another friend's bosom, he makes the latter, in his turn, feel…

— Alessandro Manzoni

“Where can you taste the joy of obeying unless He bids you do something for which His bidding is the only reason?”

— C.S. Lewis

Ah gentle pair, ye little think how nigh Your change approaches, when all these delights Will vanish and deliver ye to woe, More woe,…

— John Milton

I wasn't young, I wasn't pretty, it was necessary to find other weapons.

— Anne Desclos

Is O used by René and Sir Stephen, or does she in fact use them, and...all those irons and chains and obligatory debauchery, to…

— Anne Desclos

To love is to live on the precipice.

— Anne Desclos

I think I have a repressed bent for the military, I like discipline without question, specific schedules and duties.

— Anne Desclos

I think that submissiveness can [be] and is a formidable weapon, which women will use as long as it isn't taken from them.

— Anne Desclos

I wrote it alone, for him, to interest him, to please him, to occupy him. I wasn't young, nor particularly pretty. I needed something…

— Anne Desclos

I wrote 'The story of O' alone, for Dominique Aury, to interest him, to please him, to occupy him. I wasn't young, nor particularly…

— Anne Desclos

Who I am finally, if not the long silent part of someone, the secret and nocturnal part which has never betrayed itself in public…

— Anne Desclos

Debauchery conceived of as a kind of ascetic experience is not new, either for men or for women, but until Story of O no…

— Anne Desclos