“For [erotically intelligent couples], love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure, and commitment offers one of the great luxuries… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
For some people, a one-night stand doesn't make any difference in a seven-year love affair. I don't believe the degree of betrayal… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“When the impulse to share becomes obligatory, when personal boundaries are no longer respected, when only the shared space of togetherness is… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“If intimacy grows through repetition and familiarity, eroticism is numbed by repetition. It thrives on the mysterious, the novel, and the unexpected.… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“The French psychologist Jacques Salomé talks about the need to develop a personal intimacy with one’s own self as a counterbalance to… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“The smaller we feel in the world, the more we need to shine in the eyes of our partner.” — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
For most couples who come to me - especially in the aftermath of the revelation of an affair, when they are in… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
The very ingredients that nurture love - mutuality, reciprocity, protection, worry, responsibility for the other - are sometimes the very ingredients that… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“It is always astonishing how love can strike. No context is love-proof, no convention or commitment impervious. Even a lifestyle which is… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
It's our imagination that's responsible for love, not the other person. — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
Mystery is not always about travelling to new places, it is about looking with new eyes. — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“Love enjoys knowing everything about you; desire needs mystery. Love likes to shrink the distance that exists between me and you, while… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. —Anaïs Nin” — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
Our consumer economy peddles the notions "romantic consumerism" of finding "the one," of being the one. It's the narcissistic enhancement of, "I'm… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness. — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
I think love is often a bit selfish, even before we had consumerism. That's not new. A consumer society gives you the… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
Romantics value intensity over stability. Realists value security over passion. But both are often disappointed, for few people can live happily at… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“Love enjoys knowing everything about you; desire needs mystery. Love likes to shrink the distance that exists between me and you, while… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
Modern infidelity is different than traditional infidelity and sits on top of the romantic ideal that you find "the one" and that… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
There is no neediness in desire ... there is no caretaking in desire. Caretaking is mightily loving, [but] it's a powerful anti-aphrodisiac. — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
What is the relationship between love and desire? How do they relate, and how do they conflict? ... Therein lies the mystery… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
Sometimes it has to do with other longings that are much more existential. Sometimes you go elsewhere not because you are not liking the… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“For [erotically intelligent couples], love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure, and commitment offers one of the great luxuries of life:… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
It’s hard to feel attracted to someone who has abandoned her sense of autonomy. — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
For some people, a one-night stand doesn't make any difference in a seven-year love affair. I don't believe the degree of betrayal is always… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
I want to engage people in an honest, enlightened, and provocative conversation about the nature of erotic desire and the intricacies of intimacy and… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“The quality of your life ultimately depends on the quality of your relationships . . . which are basically a reflection of your sense… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
If you start to feel that you have given up too many parts of yourself to be with your partner, then one day you… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“I regret to say that we of the FBI are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
On some level we trade passion for security, that's trading one illusion for another. It's a matter of degree. We can't live in constant… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“When the impulse to share becomes obligatory, when personal boundaries are no longer respected, when only the shared space of togetherness is acknowledged and… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
“I do believe that the emphasis on egalitarian and respectful sex—purged of any expressions of power, aggression, and transgression—is antithetical to erotic desire for… — Esther Perel Copy Share Image
