# Quote — Lawrence Durrell, Mountolive

> Subconsciously he knew too, that the oriental woman is not a sensualist in the European sense; there is nothing mawkish in her constitution. Her true obsessions are power, politics and possessions - however much she might deny it. The sex ticks on in the mind, but its motions are warmed by the kinetic brutalities of money. (X)

- Author: [Lawrence Durrell](https://www.leafyquotes.com/lawrence-durrell.md)
- Book: [Mountolive](https://www.leafyquotes.com/lawrence-durrell/mountolive.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lawrence_Durrell#Mountolive_(1958)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/lawrence-durrell/mountolive/subconsciously-he-knew

## More from this book

> Lovers can find nothing to say to each other that has not been said and unsaid a thousand times over. Kisses were invented to translate such nothings into wounds (I)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/lawrence-durrell/mountolive/lovers-can-find.md)

> In French the truth of passion stood up coldly and cruelly to the scrutiny of human experience. In his own curious phrase he [Pursewarden] had always qualified it as 'an unsniggerable language'. (VIII)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/lawrence-durrell/mountolive/in-french-the.md)

> His profession [ diplomacy ] — offered him something like a long Jesuitical training in self-deception which enabled him to present an ever more highly polished surface to the world without deepening his human experience [-] for he lived surrounded by his ambitious and sycophantic fellows who taught him only how to excel in forms of address, and the elaborate kindnesses which, in pleasing, pave the way to advancement. (II)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/lawrence-durrell/mountolive/his-profession-diplomacy.md)