“"Your idea of love is rather primitive. Love is not a series of sensations, each one independent of the others…”

I realized that every time I had fallen in love it had been just like that: a sudden emotion, aroused by a face, a gesture or a kiss,…thrilling moments, without coherence, was all I remembered.

“It is something different,” said Anne. “There are such things as lasting affection, sweetness, a need…but I suppose you cannot understand.”

She dismissed me with a gesture and took up a newspaper. If only she had been angry instead of resigned to my lack of sentiment. All the same I felt she was right – that I was governed by my instincts like an animal, swayed this way and that by other people that I was shallow and weak. I despised myself, and it was a horribly painful sensation, all the more since I was not used to self-criticism. I went up to my room in a daze. Lying in bed on my warm sheet I thought of Anne’s words: “It is something different, it’s a need.” Had I ever needed anyone?” 

Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan