Quote by Walter Kirn

“I wanted to like him, and yet, a small part of me needed to fear him.”

— Laura Burks

“He studied diligently, unsparingly, and for that they respected him, but no one liked him”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“I despised him for liking me so much. I wondered how he could settle for so little.”

— Marian Keyes

“He wanted me more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life, but something was holding him back. Something that frightened him.”

— Denise Grover Swank

“I despised him as one fit only for amusement, a man with whom I associated for that sole purpose.”

— Osamu Dazai

“We had not liked each other much at first. He mistook my shyness for arrogance and I failed to see that his arrogance masked…

— Michael Nava

“But he knew what was wrong with him; he was ashamed of himself and afraid of them- afraid of the society whe so despised.”

— Ryünosuke Akutagawa

“I was terrified of him but at the same time wanted him to desire me. I wanted him to care for me and protect…

— Lydia Kelly

“and not for the first time she felt a reassuring shiver of dislike for him.”

— David Nicholls

“But a trick of the voice and the general body language was enough that I had a visceral desire to simply avoid him.”

— Neal Stephenson

“He could take advantage of me at any point in time that he preferred; the fact that he didn’t made me both admire him…

— Scott Hildreth

“Why was it that whenever I started to not detest him, he did something like this?”

— Catherine Clark