Jeffrey Eugenides: Quotes about love

“She'd become an English major for the purest and dullest of reasons: because she loved to read.”

“But in the end it wasn't up to me. The bigs things never are. Birth, I mean, and death. And love. And what love bequeaths to us before we're born.”

“He remained heartbroken, which meant one of two things: either his love was pure and true and earthshakingly significant; or he was addicted to feeling forlorn, he liked being heartbroken.”

“So do boys and men announce their intentions. They cover you like a sarcophagus lid. And call it love.”

“Every letter was a love letter.”

“Who are you, anyway?
-Just someone who knows, from personal experience, how attractive it can be to think you can save somebody else by loving them.”

“But, like anyone in love, Madeleine believed that her own relationship was different from every other relationship, immune from typical problems.”

“When you stood between somebody you loved and death, it was hard to be awake and it was hard to sleep.”

“Every letter was a love letter. Of course, as love letters went, this one could have been better. It was not very promising, for instance, that Madeleine claimed not to want to see him for the next half-century.”