Top 166 Quotes & Sayings by Helen Fisher

Research shows that couples who have a lot of similarities, including intellectual compatibility, end up staying together.

There's every reason to think SSRIs blunt your ability to fall and stay in love.

Why do we feel jealousy? Therapists often regard the demon as a scar of childhood trauma or a symptom of a psychological problem. And it's true that people who feel inadequate, insecure, or overly dependent tend to be more jealous than others.

Women spend their lives trying to look good for men. So a woman who feels she's sending the right visual signals is pleased with herself.

In general, men are wired to notice obvious signs that convey interest in mating - a warm smile, for example - and ignore other subtleties, like if your lipstick is faded.

Globalization requires taking a broad contextual and long-term view.

Kissing is not just kissing. It is a major escalation or de-escalation point in a powerful process of mate choice.

Any kind of novelty or excitement drives up dopamine in the brain, and dopamine is associated with romantic love.

When you massage someone, the levels of oxytocin go up in the brain, and oxytocin is one of the chemicals that drives attachment.

Men have a psychological need to show off their courage and strength. When he sees you talking to another guy, that instinct kicks in and he jumps to protect you and prove he's worthy of your love.

There were real reasons that you were attracted to somebody originally. The brain doesn't pick willy-nilly. Unless you part ways hating each other for some reason, that mechanism could get triggered again. You can literally fall in love again.

Jealousy can even be good for love. One partner may feel secretly flattered when the other is mildly jealous. And catching someone flirting with your beloved can spark the kind of lust and romance that reignites a relationship.

I think you will find that with divorce will come happier remarriages.

A woman will toss her head and a man will say, 'Oh she's trying to pick me up,' when in fact she's not doing that at all. So, women actually have to be a little careful with what they do, because men will pick up things that they didn't mean.

As social animals, we need to exchange juicy tales about someone - to connect with one another. For millions of years our forebears must have sat around the campfire, whispering about everyone they knew.

There is more and more data indicating that there is a biological basis to your political views.

Games are the way we keep romance alive. They're based in human hardwiring. Playing hard-to-get or leaving a little to the imagination allows the woman to be wooed and appreciated and the man to be challenged and intrigued.

You know, when you've been dumped, the one thing you love to do is just forget about this human being, and then go on with your life - but no, you just love them harder.

Anthropologists have found evidence of romantic love in 170 societies. They've never found a society that did not have it.

People kill for love. They die for love.

You fall in love with somebody who fits within what I call your 'love map,' an unconscious list of traits that you build in childhood as you grow up. And I also think that you gravitate to certain people, actually, with somewhat complementary brain systems.

Every time you cuddle with your children, you're likely to be driving down your testosterone.

Today, most women are surrounded by ingenious gadgets. They don't grow the peas or raise the chicken that they serve for dinner; instead they hunt and gather in the grocery store. They go through catalogs or department stores to buy clothes instead of shearing sheep, carding wool, and weaving cloth for skirts and coats and blankets.

In courtship, who wins and who loses will determine who passes on their DNA to tomorrow.

Women are better at reading body language everywhere in the world. As a matter of fact, it's associated with the female hormone estrogen. Women are better at figuring out of tone of voice, reading your face and posture and gesture.

There's biology in everything, even when you're feeling spiritual.

If two very different people pool their DNA, they'll create more genetic variety, and their young will come to the job of parenting with a wider array of skills.

Experiences shape the brain, but the brain shapes the way we view experiences, too.

Your sweetheart calls you by another's name. His eyes linger too long on your best friend. He talks with excitement about a girl at work. And the fire catches. Jealousy - that sickening combination of possessiveness, suspicion, rage, and humiliation - can overtake your mind and threaten your very core as you contemplate your rival.

Blushing is thought to be linked to increased levels of norepinephrine in the brain, which may be associated with romantic feelings. It signals that we are interested and excited, which is attractive to men.

In America, we are demanding everything from our marriage.

As societies continue to loosen their standards regarding what is appropriate female and male behavior, I think we are going to realize we have not only underestimated women, but also men.

The Internet lets women use words, which is their natural tool. Little girls speak in more complex, grammatical sentences than little boys do, and women never lose that superiority in verbal ability.

Despite the myth that men are less committed, they are predisposed to desire marriage.

There's a lot of talk about the positive aspects of love. We as a society downplay the danger, the anxiety, and the disappointment. We romanticize romance.

You've got to remember that men are men and women are women. And although a lot of similarities, there are some real differences.

I think the happiness we find, we make.

You size up someone physically in less than one second - too tall, too short, too fat, too thin, too old, too young, too stuffy, too scruffy.

When you fight, anger drives up testosterone in both men and women.

At first I assumed hate was the opposite of love. But it isn't. The opposite of love is indifference.

Hair that gleams can send a clear sign that you're young and in your prime, whatever your actual age.

People have often asked me whether what I know about love has spoiled it for me. And I just simply say, 'Hardly.' You can know every single ingredient in a piece of chocolate cake, and then when you sit down and eat that cake, you can still feel that joy.

We're not very dangerous animals; we don't have a horn like a rhino or quills like a porcupine.

Barriers tend to intensify romance. It's called the 'Romeo and Juliet effect.' I call it 'frustration attraction.'

Natural beauty really entices men. They will tell you this time and time again, and studies consistently prove it.

Nobody gets out of love alive. You turn into a menace or a pest when you've been rejected.

Mothers really were not built to raise babies not only by themselves, but with only a partner. For millions of years, a woman had much more than just her husband to help rear her young... This whole idea of 'it takes a village to raise a child' is exactly how we're supposed to live.

We still have community, but we don't seem to have local community. Even in a small town where you know your neighbors and your mother's down the street, they're not in arm's length.

Good-looking people are always looking for other good-looking people.

Saliva has testosterone and estrogen. When you kiss, you're having a chemical experience.

There exists no culture in which adultery is unknown, no cultural device or code that extinguishes philandering.

A lot of people head into courtship looking for fireworks. Don't pass up a chance by dumping someone after a first date because you don't feel the fireworks. The fireworks can happen at any time and be maintained.

Whether you're married or not, relationships - and the satisfaction tied to them - are extremely important for increasing men's and women's quality of life.

I have always been interested in how you can walk into a room and there will be 40 people there and you are immediately drawn to one.

The reason you take antidepressants is to feel calm. And romantic love is not calm - it's elation, it's mood swings, and you're killing all that when you take the drug.

The Great Depression of the 1930s saw more American unmarried women working from nine to five, mostly in repetitive, boring, subordinate, dead-end jobs. But the number of working women doubled between 1870 and 1940. During World War II it doubled once again.

Throughout evolution, ostracism was death indeed.

For so many generations, a woman's only career path was to marry well and to marry up. Those days have changed.

From my studies of genetics and neuroscience I have come to believe that people fall into four broad personality types - each influenced by a different brain chemical: I call them the Explorer, Builder, Director, and Negotiator.

Real competition can drive up testosterone, which boosts libido.