irre parable

There are kisses and kisses. Some are given in sport and some in passion. There are formal kisses of greetings and departure and there are perfunctory pecks of accustomed affection. Once in a great while lips meet and two spirits merge for a time and the universe is right and complete and the planets wheel in their proper places. Once in a while the lonely broken spirit of man is healed and made whole. For a while his quest is over and his questions are anwered.
--Robert Heinlein, For Us The Living
But yet another consituent there was--disturbing and ambivalent: a suggestion of something gypsy-like, even pagan--unscrupulous and ruthless--which would not shrink or hold back where others might feel themselves bound by the dictates of conventional, civilised life.
--Richard Adams, The Girl in a Swing
Well, what about it? Let's say it is vice. You've got vice on the brain it seems. At any rate, I like a straight question. There is something permanent in this vice; something that is founded on nature and not subject to the whims of fancy; something that is always there in your blood, like a piece of ret-hot coal; something that sets it on fire and that you won't perhaps be able to put out for a long time, even with years. You must agree it's an occupation of sort, isn't it?
--Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment