Imprinting Quotes

“Whoever a werewolf imprints on can’t be harmed.  It’s their most absolute law.”
― Breaking Dawn Part 1

“The idea that boys want to sleep with their mothers strikes most men as the silliest thing they have ever heard. Obviously, it did not seem so to Freud, who wrote that as a boy he once had an erotic reaction to watching his mother dressing. But Freud had a wet-nurse, and may not have experienced the early intimacy that would have tipped off his perceptual system that Mrs. Freud was his mother. The Westermarck theory has out-Freuded Freud.”
― Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works

“It's not like love at first sight, really. It's more like… gravity moves… suddenly. It's not the earth holding you here anymore, she does… You become whatever she needs you to be, whether that's a protector, or a lover, or a friend”
― Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn

“Carefully I leaned over and adjusted the baby blanket higher over his chest.
“Dane,” I said softly, “remember that thing you told me about the duck and the tennis ball? About how baby ducks get attached to the first thing they see after they’re born?”
“Imprinting.”
“How does that work again? . . .”
“After the duckling is hatched, there’s a window of time during which another creature, or even an inanimate object, is stamped onto his nervous system, and he becomes bonded to it. In the study I read, a duckling became imprinted to a tennis ball.”
“How long is the window of time?”
Dane’s voice was half-wary, half-amused. “Why? Are you afraid you’re the tennis ball?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible Luke is the tennis ball.”

-Ella & Dane”
― Lisa Kleypas, Smooth Talking Stranger

“What we are mistaking for a voluntary attraction of animals to humans can be explained by the “imprint phenomenon.” This biological process, first described by Konrad Lorenz, is responsible for the fact that animals, including humans, learn species-specific information, behaviours, and skills at specific points in their development. Imprinting is how animals learn early to attach to their mothers and identify with members of their own species. It is the mechanism that allows us to domesticate animals and nurture intimate relationships with them; as long as we integrate or selves into young animals’ lives before the attachment period ends, we can divert their identification with their own families and species onto ourselves.”
― Charles Danten, Un vétérinaire en colère - Essai sur la condition animale

“When a pet is adopted within its imprint period, the attachment it felt to its mother is quickly transferred to the new owner, who steps in to meet the pet’s physical and emotional demands. Herein lies the reason pets become so instantly bonded to us. The process may seem harmless on the surface, even natural, but keep in mind that the normal progression of things would have the young animal soon beginning to detach from its parent. Whereas the animal’s mother would discourage continued dependence, the surrogate mother, the new owner, encourages it. In this way, the case of usurped identity is never followed by detachment. Quite the contrary: the whole dynamic of interactions between people and their pets relies on the maintenance of the bond. Because of this, pets remain infantile, never reaching any level of autonomy or emotional maturity.”
― Charles Danten, Un vétérinaire en colère - Essai sur la condition animale