Quotes about love
page 54

“Here is the riddle of love: Everything it gives to you, it takes away.”

Source: The Dovekeepers

“Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an ordination of character which determines the relatedness of the person to the whole world as a whole, not toward one object of love”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

World, Personality

“When the karma of a relationship is done, only love remains. It's safe. Let go.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

“and the two of them loved each other for a long time in silence without making love again.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Making love, Silence, Time

“Love falls to earth, rises from the ground, pools around the afflicted. Love pulls people back to their feet. Bodies and souls are fed. Bones and lives heal. New blades of grass grow from charred soil. The sun rises.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

People, Soul, Affliction, Grass

“Faith is like love: it does not let itself be forced.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Faith

“Kahlan guide me. Kahlan teach me. Kahlan protect me. In your light I thrive. In your mercy I am sheltered. In your wisdom I am humbled. I live only to love you. My life is yours.”

Terry Goodkind book Wizard's First Rule

Source: Wizard's First Rule

Life, Wisdom, Light

“Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling.”

Simone Weil book Gravity and Grace

Source: Gravity and Grace

“I am not going to change who I am. I am human and I know how to love, and be kind, and be compassionate to those who are weaker than me. Just because I have power doesn't mean I have to use it!”

Garth Nix book Superior Saturday

Source: Superior Saturday

Change

“But hurry, let's entwine ourselves as one, our mouth broken, our soul bitten by love, so time discovers us safely destroyed.”

Federico García Lorca (1898–1936) Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director

Soul, Time

“Vanity was stronger than love at sixteen and there was no room in her hot heart now for anything but hate.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Hate, Heart

“The only angels we need invoke are those of our better nature: reason, honesty, and love. The only demons we must fear are those that lurk inside every human mind: ignorance, hatred, greed, and, which is surely the devil's masterpiece.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Source: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

Fear, Angels, Nature

“It's easy to cry when you realize that everyone you love will reject you or die. (Narrator)”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Variant: It's easy to cry when you realize that everyone you love will reject you or die.
Source: Fight Club

Cry

“And did you love me?”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Mockingjay

“And how can you say I love you to someone you love? I rolled onto my side and fell asleep next to her. Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you, Oskar. It's always necessary.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Oskar's grandmother
"My Feelings" (p. 314)
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)
Context: I said, I want to tell you something She said, you can tell me tomorrow I had never told her how much I loved her. She was my sister. We slept in the same bed. There was never a right time to say it. It was always unnecessary. I thought about waking her. But it was unnecessary. There would be other nights. And how can you say I love you to someone you love? I rolled onto my side and fell asleep next to her. Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you, Oskar. It's always necessary. I love you. Grandma.

“I think I love you, Cal." -Abra
I'm not good." -Cal
Because you're not good." -Abra”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

Thinking

“But love, like the sun that it is, sets afire and melts everything. what greed and privilege to build up over whole centuries the indignation of a pious spirit, with its natural following of oppressed souls, will cast down with a single shove.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Soul, Nature, Sun

“Love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, I'll be anybody you want me to be. Use me. Change me. I can be thin with big breasts and big hair. Take me apart. Make me into anything, but just love me.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

Change

“Angelic Sookie, vision of love and beauty, I am prostrate that the wicked evil maenad violated your smooth and voluptuous body, in an attempt to deliver a message to me. -Eric”

Charlaine Harris book Living Dead in Dallas

Source: Living Dead in Dallas

Beauty, Angels, Evil

“For men, I think, love is a thing formed of equal parts lust and astonishment. The astonishment part women understand. The lust part they only think they understand.”

Stephen King book Bag of Bones

Source: Bag of Bones

Women, Men, Understanding, Thinking

“Once love had seemed like magic. Now it seemed like tricks.”

Lorrie Moore (1957) American writer

“I have to admit, an unrequited love is so much better than a real one. I mean, it's perfect… As long as something is never even started, you never have to worry about it ending. It has endless potential.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Perfection

“The real writer is one who really writes. Talent is an invention like phlogiston after the fact of fire. Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved.”

Marge Piercy (1936) American novelist and poet

“The more you try to crush your true nature, the more it will control you. Be what you are. No one who really loves you will stop.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Nature

“Love is a moment of stillness that sometimes a word can shatter to pieces. Or love can be a thing that endures, a rich, deep current flowing unending through the years.”

Louis L'Amour (1908–1988) Novelist, short story writer

“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”

Lucille Ball (1911–1989) American actress and businesswoman

Variant: Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. Your really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.

World, Wise, Deep, Success

“If I had to sum up what he did to me, I’d say it was this: he made me sing along to all the bad songs on the radio. Both when he loved me and when he didn't.”

Jenny Offill book Dept. of Speculation

Source: Dept. of Speculation

Singing

“I loved you way before you ever had a chance to put a spell on me. I loved you at 'I've never been to Long Island,'" Zach said.
I couldn't keep a big goofy grin from my face.
I loved you at 'I like seals,'" I admitted. He grinned back.”

Meg Cabot Jinx

Source: Jinx

Way, Chance

“I have lived lies. I have done it again and again. I live lies because I cannot endure the weakness of anger, and I cannot admit the irrationality of love.-Marius”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

Anger

“We have much to be judged on when he comes, slums and battlefields and insane asylums, but these are the symptoms of our illness and the result of our failures in love.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Failure

“Love turns a heart to crystal… Much more valuable, but much more fragile.”

Neal Shusterman book Everfound

Source: Everfound

Heart

“Love is no game! It is no flowery softness! It is hard work- It demands everything from you- especially the truth. Only then does it yield results.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Truth, Game

“Once, when I was young and true.
Someone left me sad -
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.

Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Variant: A Very Short Song

Once, when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad-
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.

Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.
Source: Enough Rope

Sadness, Thinking, Heart

“You look like a Goth factory exploded all over you!" he called as she ran down the hall.
"Love you, too, jackass!”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

“The miracle of love comes to us in the presence of the uninterpreted moment.”

Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer

Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life (2002)

“I would rather you love me, but if not love, fear will do.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Skin Trade

Source: Skin Trade

Fear

“Hanajima: To truly love someone is to always put thier feelings before your own… No matter what.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Feeling

“Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to fill the roles given you by good people, by people who love you.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Life, People

“Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death – fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant.”

Edna Ferber (1885–1968) Novelist, playwright

Life, Death, Lovers

“The problem isn't to learn to love humanity, but to learn to love those members of it who happen to be at hand.”

Samuel R. Delany book Dhalgren

Source: Dhalgren

Problem, Learning

“Measure the hate you feel now, and the shame. That quantity is your capacity also to love and to feel joy and to have compassion.”

Joanne Greenberg book I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Source: I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Hate, Feeling, Joy

“But you cant shut everyone out. I mean you have to have someone to love… someone to hold on to… someone”

Hubert Selby Jr. Requiem for a Dream

Source: Requiem for a Dream

“When I was seventeen, I don't think I even knew what love was. But when it's right, it's right, and you just know it.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

Thinking

“Intimate, loving, and enduring relationships with our family and close friends will be among the sources of the deepest joy in our lives.”

Clayton M. Christensen (1952–2020) Mormon academic

Source: How Will You Measure Your Life?

Family, Joy

“I don’t want there to be things you “love about me”, I want you to love “all of me”.”

Mathias Malzieu book La Mécanique du cœur

Source: La Mécanique du cœur

“I can hate you more, but I'll never love you less.”

Michael Morpurgo book War Horse

Source: War Horse

Hate

“Love and I once had a great relationship, but I fear we've broken up. It cheated on me, wrecked my heart, and then went on to date other people. A lot of other people. And I can't stand to watch it, since love's going to cheat on them too.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

People, Fear, Heart, Cheating

“No woman marries for money: they are all clever enough, before marrying a millionaire, to fall in love with him.”

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

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Money

“So dear I love him, that with him all deaths I could endure, without him live no life.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Life, Death

“To be loved because of one's merit, because one deserves it, always leaves doubt; maybe I did not please the person whom I want to love me, maybe this, or that - there is always a fear that love could disappear.”

Erich Fromm book The Art of Loving

Source: The Art of Loving

Fear, Personality

“And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.”

Maurice Sendak book Where the Wild Things Are

Source: Where the Wild Things Are

“How could two people who were so in love not end up happily ever after? It had to work. Didn’t it?”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

People

“True love would look a second time. True love would not be thwarted. True love would not accept no for an answer. He would search the world and certainly look again and again in every cottage until he finds you.”

Alex Flinn (1966) American children's writer

Source: A Kiss in Time

World, Search, Time

“Love is when you give someone else the power to destroy you, and you trust them not to do it.”

E. Lockhart (1967) American writer of novels as E. Lockhart (mainly for teenage girls) and of picture books under real name Emily J…

Source: Real Live Boyfriends: Yes. Boyfriends, Plural. If My Life Weren't Complicated, I Wouldn't Be Ruby Oliver

“What is done in love is done well.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

“If ye loved him, he must ha' been a good man.'
'Yes, he… was.'
'Then I shall do my best to honor his spirit by serving his wife.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

“Sometimes God allows what he hates to accomplish what he loves.”

Joni Eareckson Tada (1949) American artist

Source: The God I Love

God, Hate, Faith

“I don't think I could love you so much if you had nothing to complain of and nothing to regret. I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and of little value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them.”

Borís Pasternak book Doctor Zhivago

Source: Doctor Zhivago

Life, People, Beauty, Thinking

“Of all treasures of knowledge, the most vital is the knowledge of God, his existence, powers, love, and promises.”

Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Source: Faith Precedes the Miracle

God, Knowledge

“If you look at old pictures, Irene Casey is so pretty. Not just young, but pretty the way you look when your face goes smooth, the skin around your eyes and lips relaxed, the pretty you only look when you love the person taking the picture.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Rant

Source: Rant

Way, Personality

“Spread love and understanding,” Reacher said. “Use force if necessary.”

Lee Child book Never Go Back

Source: Never Go Back

Understanding

“Life loves the liver of it.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Life

“If you accept such love with purity and humility, you will understand that Love is neither giving nor receiving -it is participating.”

Paulo Coelho Maktub

Source: Maktub

Understanding

“This was love, new and bright and terrifying”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: What to Buy the Shadowhunter Who Has Everything

“It was unfair that people who longed for love the most, searched the hardest for it, found it so elusive.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Tempt Me at Twilight

People, Search

“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

Peace, Imagination, Rage

“Every letter was a love letter.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Marriage Plot

Source: The Marriage Plot

“His gaze held hers, and his voice was tender and rough. “Love me, Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth felt a tremor run through her entire body, but she looked at him without flinching. “I do.”

Judith McNaught (1944) American writer

Source: Almost Heaven

“If we could be pure dancers in spirit we would never be afraid to love, and we would love with strength and wisdom.”

Ben Okri (1959) Nigerian writer

Source: Birds of Heaven

Wisdom

“Maybe that's what we look for in the people we love, the spark of unhappiness we think we know how to extinguish.”

Tom Perrotta Election

Source: Election

People, Thinking

“… I begin with songs. They provide a sort of skeleton grammar for me to flesh out. Songs of longing for future tense, songs of regret for past tense, and songs of love for present tense.”

Mary Doria Russell The Sparrow

Source: The Sparrow

Past, Future

“My view is that it is desirable to be both loved and feared; but it is difficult to achieve both and, if one of them has to be lacking, it is much safer to be feared than loved.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince

Fear

“We're hallucinating. And that's what this world is: a mass hallucination, where fear seems more real than love. Fear is an illusion. Our craziness, paranoia, anxiety and trauma are literally all imagined.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Source: A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

World, Fear, Imagination

“The opposite of love isn't hate; it's indifference”

Steven Pressfield (1943) United States Marine

Source: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles

Hate, Indifference

“I hate the moon. I hate tides and earthquakes and volcanoes. I hate a world where things that have absolutely nothing to do with me can destroy my life and the lives of people I love.”

Susan Beth Pfeffer book Life As We Knew It

Source: Life As We Knew It

Life, Hate, People, World

“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

“If I had learned anything in my life about love, it was that they were tenous things that could end at any moment. Caution was essential-but not at the cost of risking your life”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

Life, Learning

“I hurt with you. I bled with you - not only because we're bonded but because of the love I have for you. -- Eric Northman”

Charlaine Harris Dead in the Family

Variant: .. I suffered with you. I hurt with you. I bled with you -not only because we're bonded, but because the love I have for you." ~ Eric Northman in Dead in The Family.
Source: Dead in the Family

Hurt

“This was the price you paid for sleeping together. This was the end of the trap. This was what people got for loving each other.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Farewell to Arms

Source: A Farewell to Arms

People, Sleep

“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”

Ben Okri (1959) Nigerian writer

Suffering, Inspirational

“You may protest if you can love the person you are protesting against as much as you love yourself.”

Ram Dass book Be Here Now

Source: Be Here Now

Personality

“Now I understand. When you love someone, you have to try things even if they don't make sense to anyone else.”

Gennifer Choldenko book Al Capone Does My Shirts

Source: Al Capone Does My Shirts

Understanding, Sense

“If you can believe the God who is perfect loves you then you can believe that you are worth loving.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Source: Beauty for Ashes: Receiving Emotional Healing

God, Perfection

“Say what you will, 'tis better to be left than never to have been loved.”

William Congreve The Way of the World

Act II, scene i. Precedent for Alfred Tennyson's more famous: "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all"
The Way of the World (1700)

For Him

“I am like a falling star who has finally found her place next to another in a lovely constellation, where we will sparkle in the heavens forever.”

Amy Tan (1952) American novelist

Star

“You'll learn, honey. Love can be the best thing in life. And it can be the worst. The absolute worst.”

Clive Barker book Abarat

Source: Abarat

Life, Learning

“I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

As quoted in Oprah, in Her Words : Our American Princess (2008) by Tuchy Palmieri, p. 71

Life, Fear

“You can," he said. There was a tremulous note in his voice. "You're strong—you're so, so strong. It's why I love you.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Strong

“I love the solitude of reading. I love the deep dive into someone else's story, the delicious ache of a last page.”

Naomi Shihab Nye (1952) American writer

Solitude, Reading

“The Eskimo has fifty-two names for snow because it is important to them; there ought to be as many for love.”

Margaret Atwood book Surfacing

Surfacing (1972) p. 107 <br class="br">The premise for this quote is now known to be a linguistic myth stemming from the early 20th century work of Franz Boas. This quote by Atwood has been cited as an example of the perpetuation of this myth https://books.google.ca/books/about/White_Lies_about_the_Inuit.html?id=i-osjdNH3g8C. <br class="br">Variant: The Eskimos had 52 names for snow because it was important to them; there ought to be as many for love.