Lance Morrow? Tomima Edmark? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: A kiss has been described as a “wordless articulation of desires whose object lies in the future.” Would you please help me to determine who made this statement?
Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1986 U.S. essayist and “Time” magazine journalist Lance Morrow published a piece about kissing which included the following passage. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
Kissing is a promise that reserves the right of refusal. A kiss is mute and highly articulate. It involves a brief fusion of two heads, the head being the residence of mind and soul. The mouth is simultaneously the front office of language and of hunger.
The kiss is a wordless articulation of desires whose object lies in the future, and somewhat to the south.
What made the screen kiss stimulating in the old days was that the consummation was left to occur in the viewer’s imagination.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
In 1988 Lance Morrow published a collection of his essays under the title “Fishing in the Tiber”. The quotation was included in the piece called “Changing the Gestures of Passion”.2
In 1991 “The Palm Beach Post” of Florida printed an article titled “Kissing and Telling” for Valentine’s Day. The article discussed the recently published book “Kissing: Everything You Wanted to Know” by Tomima Edmark and reprinted two definitions. The quotation was slightly inaccurate. It employed the word “desire” instead of “desires”:3
Definitions of a Kiss
“Love’s lesser lightning.” — Sir John Suckling
“The kiss is a wordless articulation of desire whose object lies in the future, and somewhat to the south.” — Lance Morrow
In 2008 “I Never Metaphor I Didn’t Like: A Comprehensive Compilation of History’s Greatest Metaphors, Analogies, and Similes” compiled by Mardy Grothe included an entry for the quotation.4
The Quote Investigator website has a webpage about a thematically related expression “Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire” which is available here.
In conclusion, Lance Morrow deserves credit for this quotation. Some instances replace the original word “desires” with “desire”.
Image Notes: Illustration of a couple about to kiss from Klara Kulikova at Unsplash. The image has been cropped and resized.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Mardy Grothe whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Some instances replace the original word “desires” with “desire”.
Update History: On May 10, 2024 the format of the bibliographical notes was updated. Also, the full article was placed on this website.
- 1986 January 19, The Sun-Herald, The kissing style of the great screen lovers … but now the stars are fearful by Lance Morrow, Quote Page 155, Column 2, Sydney, New South Wales, New South Wales, Australia. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1988, Fishing in the Tiber: Essays by Lance Morrow, Chapter: Changing the Gestures of Passion, Start Page 49, Quote Page 50, Henry Holt and Company, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1991 February 14, The Palm Beach Post, Kissing and Telling, Quote Page D1, Column 2, West Palm Beach, Florida. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 2008, I Never Metaphor I Didn’t Like: A Comprehensive Compilation of History’s Greatest Metaphors, Analogies, and Similes by Mardy Grothe, Chapter 10: Sex Is an Emotion in Motion, Quote Page 212, Collins: An Imprint of HarperCollins, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎