How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
That was love with Deborah and it was separate from making love to Deborah; no doubt she classified the two as Grace and Lust. (1.9)
As we'll come to see, Rojack shares these beliefs about sexuality and then some. By separating sex from love, they're making it all but impossible to have a long-lasting relationship that's both loving and sexually satisfying. Plus, we all know how their relationship turns out…
Quote #2
"That's what woke me up—making your reconciliation with Mrs. Rojack. I was awake and I was so excited—I can't explain it." (2.56)
The noises that Ruta interprets as sex are actually the sounds of Deborah's murder. Gross. Pay attention to this one, though, because the link between lust and violence is an important aspect of the novel's view of sexuality and male-female relations as a whole.
Quote #3
Hopeless, because I should have been down on the street already, and yet there was no help for it, thirty second was all I wanted and thirty seconds I took. (3.5)
Rojack has just murdered his wife, slept with her maid, and pushed Deborah's corpse out a window, yet he's still so overcome by lust that he can't make it out the door. This shows us just how extreme Rojack's sexual addiction is: He's unable to resist his urges, even when his life depends on it.
Quote #4
Like an echo from the […] past came a clear sense of doing this before, of making love to some woman who was not attractive to me […] and me saying "Oh, darling, oh, baby." (3.46)
For context, Rojack is currently pretending to mourn Deborah's death in front of police officers. This implies that his very love for Deborah was a lie, though we don't think this is completely true. Either way, it once again establishes the connection between violence and death thanks to the much-needed release that both seem to provide.
Quote #5
I did not go on to say that when I was in bed with a woman, I rarely felt as if I were making life, but rather as if I were a pirate sharpening up a raid on life. (4.280)
Well, that's a problem Rojack ol' buddy. Rojack knows that he has a twisted mentality about sex, that he is far more concerned with his own satisfaction than anything else. So why not stop? Why not change his ways? As we'll soon see, Rojack is too hooked to turn back now.
Quote #6
I was the equal of a cigarette smoker who has been three days without a butt—underneath everything I wanted sex now, not for pleasure, not for love, but to work this tension. (5.13)
This is pretty much the same reason that he kills Deborah: to release tension. Furthermore, it once again establishes that Rojack is addicted to sexuality just as much as he's addicted to alcohol and violence. Maybe he had self-control at some point, but those days are long gone.
Quote #7
If at this exact instant Roberts had offered me twenty-four hours of freedom I think I would have signed his confession, for I had to see her again, simple as that. (5.33)
Once again, Rojack's lust overwhelms his instincts for self-preservation. Luckily, Roberts waits a few extra moments to make this proposition, so Rojack is able to stand firm. Although lust is a powerful emotion, capable of overwhelming him at a moment's notice, it tends to disappear just as quickly as it appears.
Quote #8
She nodded her head wisely. "People want to make love after a death." (8.93)
Here, Deirdre articulates a simple fact that Rojack has spent the whole novel trying to ignore: Ever since his experience during World War II—not to mention his murder of Deborah—Rojack has been trying to escape death through sex.
Quote #9
"And then I felt an awful desire to go to her room: my teeth were literally grinding, my belly was a pit of snakes." (8.406)
This is as dark as things get. Incest comes up several times throughout the novel, typically portrayed as the darkest level of lust that can exist. Essentially, Mailer is saying is that limitless money and time, combined with overwhelming, repressed lust, creates deep dark pits in our subconscious that would be better off not existing at all.
Quote #10
I could hear what he offered now: bring Ruta forth, three of us to pitch and tear and squat and lick, swill and grovel on that Lucchese bed. (8.438)
Basically, Kelly wants Rojack to completely give into his lust—as if Rojack hadn't already done just that. Luckily, there's a line that even he won't cross. That being said, this whole exchange makes us suspicious that Kelly might not have been completely honest about the extent of his relationship with Deborah.