“When a man appears in a ridiculous light to a woman, all's lost for that man.”

“A woman needs to be told that you would sacrifice anything for her. A man needs to be told he is being useful. When the man or woman strays from that formula, the other loses trust. When trust is lost, communication falls apart.”

“Ridiculous man in a pair of ridiculous sneakers. Such a ridiculous man hardly deserved to live.”

“…the role of the disappointed lover of a maiden or of any single woman might be ridiculous; but the role of a man who was pursuing a married woman, and who made it the purpose of his life at all cost to draw her into adultery, was one which had in it something beautiful and dignified and could never be ridiculous….”

“It was the end for me. And yet not an end. In all the years which have since elapsed she remains the woman I loved and lost, the unattainable one [...] I see myself forever and ever as the ridiculous man, the lonely soul, the wanderer, the restless frustrated artist, the man in love with love, always in search of the absolute, always seeking the unattainable. —Henry Miller, Stand Still like the Hummingbird (1962)”

“When a man writes a romance, the woman dies. When a woman writes one, it ends all tidy and sweet.”