“Acceptance is not love. You love a person because he or she has lovable traits, but you accept everybody just because they're alive and human.”

“I mean that to be in a relationship with God is to be loved purely and furiously. And a person who thinks himself unlovable cannot be in a relationship with God because he can't accept who God is; a Being that is love. We learn that we are lovable or unlovable from other people," Paul says. "That is why God tells us so many times to love each other.”

“Accept the children the way we accept trees—with gratitude, because they are a blessing—but do not have expectations or desires. You don’t expect trees to change, you love them as they are.”

“With the right person, you will experience someone who is able not only to accept, but also to love the truth of you and meet your needs because it brings them pleasure to do so.”

“Why should they also be accepted by private persons in private transactions in exchange for goods and services?
The short answer—and the right answer—is that private persons accept these pieces of paper because they are confident that others will. The pieces of green paper have value because everybody thinks they have value. Everybody thinks they have value because in everybody's experience they have had value…”

“She was bored. She loved, had capacity to love, for love, to give and accept love. Only she tried twice and failed twice to find somebody not just strong enough to deserve it, earn it, match it, but even brave enough to accept it.”

“You don't love someone because they're perfect. You love them in spite of the fact that they're not.”

“She did not believe he could have really gone, because for her, to leave the person you loved was impossible.”

“There comes a point when you just love someone. Not because they're good, or bad, or anything really. You just love them. It doesn't mean you'll be together forever. It doesn't mean you won't hurt each other. It just mean you love them. Sometimes in spite of who they are, and sometimes because of who they are. And you know that they love you, sometimes because of who you are, and sometimes in spite of it.”

“Love for a person is acceptance of him or her the way he is and the way he is not.”