"The moment a man starts to tell you about sex, he's telling you something about the two of you. Ninety per cent of the time it doesn't happen, and probably it's as well it doesn't, though if you can't get a level of candor on sex and you choose to behave instead as if this isn't ever on your mind, the male friendship is incomplete. Most men never find such a friend. It's not common. But when it does happen, when two men find themselves in agreement about this essential part of being a man, unafraid of being judged, shamed, envied, or outdone, confident of not having the confidence betrayed, their human connection can be very strong and an unexpected intimacy results." Philip Roth, The Human Stain, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000, p. 27.

"The contaminant of sex, the redeeming corruption that de-idealizes the species and keeps us everlastingly mindful of the matter that we are." Philip Roth, The Human Stain, p. 37.