“I am no longer in love with her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long.”

“I am amused at my relations with her: left so ardent in January – and now what? Also I like her presence and her beauty. Am I in love with her? But what is love? Her being 'in love' with me, excites and flatters; and interests. What is this 'love?”

“She was in pain and I loved her, sort of loved her, I guess, so I kind of had to love her pain, too.”

“We’ve loved each other so long I’ve never been a man and not loved her.”

“I kissed her neck and shoulders. I felt faint with loving her so much.”

“Love is a verb. Love – the feeling – is the fruit of love the verb or our loving actions. So love her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her.”

“Love itself became the object of her love. She loved herself in love, she loved loving love, as love loves loving, and was able, in that way, to reconcile herself with a world that fell so short of what she would have hoped for.”

“Loving her, Monsignore,
I love all her attributes;
But I believe
That even if I did not love her
I would love the blueness of her eyes,
And her blue garment, made in the manner of the Japanese.”

“She's had so little love, Jesse thought, I will drown her in it for the rest of her life.”

“I want so obviously, so desperately to be loved, and to be capable of love. I am still so naive; I know pretty much what I like and dislike; but please don’t ask me who I am. A passionate fragmentary girl, maybe?”