Mirabelle attracts men of a different kind. They are shyer and more reticent. They look at her a long time before approaching, and when they do find something about her that they want, it is something simple within her.

I collected 599 pictures of Elizabeth Taylor — some people find that obsessive. I collected 599. Not 600, but 599. I feel that genius and obsession be the same thing. It is rare when a woman is driven by obsession. Similarly, it is rare when a woman is a genius. That's why I said one of my most notorious sentences, that there is no woman Mozart because there is no woman Jack the Ripper. Men are more prone to obsession because they are fleeing domination by women. They flee to a chess game or to a computer or to fixing a car, or whatever, to attempt to complete their identities, because they always feel incomplete.

The love object occupies the thoughts of the person diagnosed as 'in love' all the time despite the probability that very little is actually known about it. To it are ascribed all qualities considered by the obsessed as good, regardless of whether the object in question possesses those qualities in any degree. Expectations are set up which no human being could fulfill. Thus the object chosen plays a special role in relation to the go of the obsessed, who decided that he or she is the right or the only person for him. In the case of a male this notion may sanction a degree of directly aggressive behavior either in pursuing the object or driving off competition.

I'm drawn again and again to obsessives. I like them. I like the idea that someone could push away all the concerns and details that make up everyday life and just zero in on one thing - the thing that fits the contours of his or her imagination. Obsessives lead us astray sometimes. Can't see the bigger picture. Serve not just the world's but also their own narrow interests. But I don't think we get progress or innovation or joy or beauty without obsessives.

"People who are "in love" lose interest in other pursuits. That is why we call it "obsession.

Not all love is comprehended in such a description, but the sickening
obsession which thrills the nervous frames of the heroines of
great love-affairs whether in cheap ‘romance’ comic-papers or in
hard-back novels of passionate wooing is just that. Women must
recognize in the cheap ideology of being in love the essential persuasion
to take an irrational and self-destructive step. Such obsession
has nothing to do with love, for love is not swoon, possession or
mania, but ‘a cognitive act, indeed the only way to grasp the innermost
core of personality.

We are obsessive. We wouldn’t want to be doing anything other than what we are doing. That’s where obsession comes in – when you care about something 24 hours a day.

An obsession is where something will not leave your mind

Women are often under the impression that men are much more madly in love with them than they really are.

Once we remind ourselves that a woman's principal occupation is the winning and holding of at least one male slave; and that her looks are among her primary assets for this business, we must realize that man's condescending attitude to her obsession with her looks is obtuse. Not just obtuse; it is a sign of men's own folly.

Never worry about being obsessive. I like obsessive people. Obsessive people make great art

The woman afflicted by the need for adoration cannot have a free moment of real joy away from her obsession with self; she is slave to the never-ending quest for youth and beauty and social acceptance.

Everybody has certain preoccupations they return to.What looks like an obsession, is often something more modest, namely a return to the fray through a somewhat different angle of vision..from a different stage of your experience.

When a man, however passively, becomes an obstacle to the fulfillment of a woman's desires, he becomes an odious thing in her eyes, - or will, given time enough.