“Being told that love is forbidden does not kill love. It strengthens it.”

“Power is being told you're not loved and not being destroyed by it.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

“Our love is forbidden like the love of a shark and a—and a shark hunter. But that’s what makes it special.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

“He said that in a way being loved is like being told you never have to die.”

Timothy Findley book The Wars

“One does not kill oneself for love of a woman, but because love—any love—reveals us in our nakedness, our misery, our vulnerability, our nothingness.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

“I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

“Never seek to tell thy love
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart;
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears—
Ah, she doth depart.

Soon as she was gone from me
A traveler came by
Silently, invisibly—
Oh, was no deny.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

“Just because someone does not love you as you want, it does not mean that you do not love with all his being.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

“Time, which strengthens friendship, weakens love.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

“Our love grows soft if it is not strengthened by truth, and our truth grows hard if it is not softened by love.”

John Stott (1921–2011) British theologian