Bruce Fink

“For once desire is articulated in words it does not sit still, but displaces, drifting metonymically from one thing to the next. Desire is a product of language and cannot be satisfied with an object.”

“Desire is an end in itself: it seeks only more desire, not fixation on a specific object.29”

“Can we, after all, love someone who seems to us to be perfect, someone who seems to us to have everything? Isn’t it often the case that although we may be fascinated or captivated by someone who appears to have only good qualities, we only begin to love him or her from the moment we suspect that he or she is somewhat (if not deeply) unhappy, quite clueless about something, rather awkward, clumsy, or helpless? Isn’t it in his or her nonmastery or incompleteness that we see a possible place for ourselves in his or her affections – that is, that we glimpse the possibility that we may be able to do something for that person, be something to that person? In this sense, we perhaps love not what they have, but what they do not have; moreover, we show our love by giving what we ourselves do not have.”