Mark Helprin Quotes

Through the damp fabric of my coverall, bundled in my blanket, I feel naked. Raw. He sees more than I want, more than I can bear. It’s like standing before him ... while he stares at my scars, pitiless and unmoved.

Ninety percent of true love is acute, ear-burning embarrassment.

My worst habit is...getting naked all the time haha...sorry.

…there is no nakedness that compares to being naked in front of someone for the first time.

I don't want anyone seeing me naked.

I don't like to take my clothes off.

It's awkward: Here you are with most of your clothes off in bed with this person who you've really just met. You're strangers to each other's bodies and you're coming together for the first time in front of all these people.

So many times you see beautiful lovemaking scenes with a lot of exposure or an awkward lovemaking scene, but I think it's very rare that you see it private.

It's always a little nerve-wracking to do a love scene, more than anything because it's just awkward.

To have all your life's work and to have them along the wall, it's like walking in with no clothes on. It's terrible.

My children didn't when they were little because I thought that they had to be of a certain age. I hoped they liked me well enough not to want to see me in that sort of a spot.

There is something about sex that always brings out the funny in me. I think it's because we make such fools of ourselves over it.

I feel scenes of sexual intimacy are ruined if the director is embarrassed.

15 people in a room looking at you with no clothes on - that's a little weird.

I know I was known as a ladies man and all that, but even the thought of holding my heroine's hand made me break into a sweat.

Does it bother you, me being half naked all the time?

Marco knows he does not have the time to push her away, so he pulls her close, burying his face in her hair, his bowler hat torn from his head by the wind...."Trust me," Celia whispers in his ear, and he stops fighting it, forgetting everything but her.

Coop kissed me deeply, drawing my breath from me in a long, sweet ribbon. "Perhaps I haven't mentioned it, but I'm an expert when it comes to first steps." Are you," I said. "Then tell me how." You close your eyes," Coop answered, "and jump.

I wonder why we always deny love. I remember in middle school, if you were accused of the crime of loving, you screamed denials constantly and stopped ever even looking at the boy you were accused of liking. The boys could destroy each other by yodeling, "An-drew lo-oves Jen-nie," and both Andrew and Jennie would flinch and blush. Love is this great thing that most songs and books and poems and lives are all about. So the minute we actually think there might be love around, we start laughing and pretending and hiding from it.

He leans over and takes her hand. With the other he touches her face. ‘You your best thing, Sethe. You are.’ His holding fingers are holding hers. ‘Me? Me?

Love has the faculty of making two lovers seem naked, not in each other's sight, but in their own.

Watching a make-out while wrapped in a blanket with a guy she wanted to make out with made her feel exposed. Obvious. Transparent. Like her thoughts were flashing before his eyes. Finally Brett managed to pull away without consent of Bekka's lips. The confusion created a sloppy bite-a-juicy-peach sound. Everyone cringed.

If you must know, I-I had never in my life kissed a young lady, and you are far too beautiful to me to want to get it wrong!

The more you love someone, he came to think, the harder it is to tell them. It surprised him that strangers didn't stop each other on the street to say I love you.

I don't blame you. But if there's anything else you have to tell me, now would be the time." He pressed forward, urging me to stretch on the couch. Coming over me, he whispered, "I'm in love with you." With everything going wrong, that was the one thing that was totally right. It was enough.