Used book – A Great Love, Franz-Olivier Giesbert

"On her deathbed, a few weeks before she passed away, Mom warned me: "How foolish men are. - I don't understand. - They are foolish, selfish, and unreliable. Antoine, promise me you'll never behave like a man." I remember nodding. Another promise I didn't keep. I was always on the lookout. Even when I was happily settled, which was often the case, I continued to seek that great love, the one that, according to Spinoza, constitutes an "increase of ourselves." This was exactly the sensation I felt watching the girl with the golden hair. I was expanding. I was also rising."