Quotes about love
page 79

“It feels so exhausting to be so bad at something I loved so much.”

Chuck Klosterman book Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Source: Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

“You can only give away what you have… If you have love, you can give it. If you don't have it, you don't have it to give.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

“There are a lot of things we don't want to know about the people we love.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

People

“Please be peaceful. We believe in law and order. We are not advocating violence, I want you to love your enemies… for what we are doing is right, what we are doing is just -- and God is with us.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

God, Peace, Law

“Oh continue to love me -
never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.

ever thine
ever mine
ever ours”

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer

Faith, Heart

“Trust in what you love, continue to do it, and it will take you where you need to go.”

Natalie Goldberg (1948) American writer

“In this age, lies were the universal lubricant of the culture. A love of Truth and commitment to it were seldom rewarded and were often punished.”

Dean Koontz book Breathless

Source: Breathless

Truth, Age, Universe

“Children know by instinct that hell is an absence of love, and they can pick out theirs without missing.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

Children, Hell

“Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Art

“I don't understand why it's a sin if you love something and want to keep it from having to suffer.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

Understanding, Suffering

“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 24 (p. 430)

Wise, Relationship, Good Night, Cute

“Love cannot live where there is no trust.”

Edith Hamilton book Mythology

Source: Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes

“The sad thing is, people don't want to believe that the person they're in love with is out of his mind, drinking and using, so if you give them even half an excuse, they're going to want to believe it.”

Anthony Kiedis book Scar Tissue

Source: Scar Tissue

People, Sadness, Drink, Personality

“Love is holy because it is like grace--the worthiness of its object is never really what matters.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

“And remember, my sentimental friend, that a heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.”

L. Frank Baum book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

this is a line spoken by Frank Morgan's depiction of the Wizard of Oz in the 1939 film, which debuted 20 years after Baum's death. It did not actually appear in the "Wonderful Wizard of Oz". The ending of "Steam Engines of Oz" wrongly attributes this phrase to Baum when it would've originated from the 1939 adaptation script writers Langley/Ryerson/Woolf.
Misattributed
Variant: A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others
Source: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Heart

“To love with understanding and without understanding. To love blindly, and to folly. To see only what is loveable. To think only of these things. To see the best in everyone around, their virtues rather than their faults. To see Christ in them!”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

Understanding, Thinking, Christ

“Thus, the ultimate choice for a man, inasmuch as he is driven to transcend himself, is to create or to destroy, to love or to hate.”

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

Hate

“I was told love should be unconditional. That's the rule, everyone says so. But if love has no boundaries, no limits, no conditions, why should anyone try to do the right thing ever? If I know I am loved no matter what, where is the challenge?”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

“Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit other qualities connected with the social instincts which in us would be called moral.”

Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

volume I, chapter III: "Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals — continued", pages 100-101 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=113&itemID=F937.1&viewtype=image <br class="br">The Descent of Man (1871) <br class="br">Context: As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. If, indeed, such men are separated from him by great differences in appearance or habits, experience unfortunately shews us how long it is before we look at them as our fellow-creatures. Sympathy beyond the confines of man, that is humanity to the lower animals, seems to be one of the latest moral acquisitions. It is apparently unfelt by savages, except towards their pets. How little the old Romans knew of it is shewn by their abhorrent gladiatorial exhibitions. The very idea of humanity, as far as I could observe, was new to most of the Gauchos of the Pampas. This virtue, one of the noblest with which man is endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our sympathies becoming more tender and more widely diffused, until they are extended to all sentient beings. As soon as this virtue is honoured and practised by some few men, it spreads through instruction and example to the young, and eventually through public opinion.

Animals

“The strongest love is the love that can demonstrate its fragility.”

Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes

Source: Eleven Minutes

“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.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Marriage Plot

Source: The Marriage Plot

“Familiar acts are beautiful through love.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley Prometheus Unbound

The Earth, Act IV, l. 403
Prometheus Unbound (1818–1819; publ. 1820)

Beauty, Beauty, Romantic, love

“They had never been closer in their month of love, nor communicated more profoundly one with another, than when she brushed silent lips against his coat's shoulder or when he touched the end of her fingers, gently, as though she were asleep.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Communication

“Do you know that every great thing in the history of art and every beautiful thing in life is actually what you call nasty or has been caused by feelings that you would call nasty? By passion, by love, by hatred, by truth. Do you know that?”

John Fowles book The Collector

Source: The Collector

Life, Truth, Beauty, Art

“No child is born a delinquent. They only became that way if nobody loved them when they were kids. Unloved children grow up to be serial murderers or alcoholics.”

Jeannette Walls book The Glass Castle

Source: The Glass Castle

Children, Alcohol, Way

“The wet air was as cold as the ashes of love.”

Raymond Chandler book Farewell, My Lovely

Source: Farewell, My Lovely

“He felt his heart, which no longer beat, contract, and he wondered if there was anything in the world as painful as not being able to protect the people you loved.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Pain, People, World, Heart

“This is love if it's not with you, a terrible fiery something that makes people look away, and it feels like a punch in the throat.”

Daniel Handler book Adverbs

Source: Adverbs

People, Feeling

“It seems to me people tend to forget that we are to love our enemies, not to satisfy some standard of righteousness but because God their Father loves them.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

God, People, Forgetting

“You cannot control what you love--you watch it driving recklessly towards the broken bridge, the torn-up track, the horror of seventy years ahead.”

Graham Greene book The Power and the Glory

Source: The Power and the Glory

“I blinked the sleep out of my eyes and realized my head was in Khufu’s lap. The baboon was foraging my scalp for munchies.
“Dude.” I sat up groggily. “Not cool.”
“But he gave you a lovely hairdo,” Sadie said.
“Agh-agh!” Khufu agreed.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Sleep

“Do you love him?"
There were only a few people in the world who could ask me such insanely personal questions without getting punched. Dimitri was one of them.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

People, World, Question, Personality

“To love God is to love His will. It is to wait quietly for life to be measured by One who knows us through and through. It is to be content with His timing and His wise appointment.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Life, God, Time, Waiting

“The happiest she'd ever been was with him, and the saddest. Was that the true test of love?”

Stewart O'Nan (1961) American writer

Source: The Odds: A Love Story

“That's why I want you there, he said. You're unpredictable, and that can be the difference between success and failure. Most people make decisions in anger, fear, love, or obligation. You make decisions to irritate people.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: For a Few Demons More

People, Fear, Failure, Decision

“Reader, nothing is sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name. Nothing.”

Kate DiCamillo book The Tale of Despereaux

Variant: Reader, nothing is sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name. Nothing.
Source: The Tale of Despereaux (2004)

World, Sadness

“I knew then that Jocelyn would never come back to me, because of you. You are the only thing in the world she ever loved more than she loved me. And because of that she hates me. And because of that, I hate the sight of you”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Hate, World

“i Believe In The Fire Of Love And The Sweat Of Truth”

Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army

Truth

“My boy, that was a TV show. I used a stunt double. I always use a stunt double. Except in love scenes. I insist on doing those myself.”

William Shatner (1931) Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, author, and film director

Boy

“I love you. Still not the right word, but i know you want to hear it.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Reflected in You

“To my mind, the only possible pet is a cow. Cows love you. They will listen to your problems and never ask a thing in return. They will be your friends forever. And when you get tired of them, you can kill and eat them. Perfect.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

Problem, Perfection

“That seemed to handle it. That was it. Send a girl off with one man. Introduce her to another to go off with him. Now go and bring her back. And sign the wire with love. That was it all right. I went in to lunch.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Sun Also Rises

Source: The Sun Also Rises

Girl

“He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Address on The Method of Nature http://www.infomotions.com/alex2/authors/emerson-ralph/emerson-method-734/ (1841)

Time, Drawing

“I finally know the difference between pleasing and loving, obeying and respecting. It has taken me so many years to be okay with being different, and with being this alive, this intense. (xxvi)”

Eve Ensler (1953) American playwright, performer, feminist, activist and artist

Source: I am an Emotional Creature

“In everyone there sleeps
A sense of life lived according to love.
To some it means the difference they could make
By loving others, but across most it sweeps,
As all they might have done had they been loved.
That nothing cures.”

Philip Larkin (1922–1985) English poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian

Life, Sense, Sleep

“You have no idea how strong my love is!”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Idea, Strong

“Here's what is truly at the heart of wholeheartedness: Worthy now, not if, not when, we're worthy of love and belonging now. Right this minute. As is.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Heart

“Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgandy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

Color, Sun

“And I, love, am a pathological liar.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“The rivalry ends here," [Percy] said. "I love you, Wise Girl.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Variant: The rivalry ends here," Percy said. "I love you, Wise Girl.
Source: The Blood of Olympus

Girl

“I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it to the earnestness of others.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Sincerity

“Love does not grown on trees or brought in the market, but if one wants to be "LOVED" one must first know how to give (unconditional)LOVE..”

Kabir (1440–1518) Indian mystic poet

Tree

“The most delicious sensation of all is the re-birth of healthy human love. Spring coming back to Earth!”

Aleister Crowley book Diary of a Drug Fiend

Source: Diary of a Drug Fiend

Spring, Birth

“Being in love made you especially vulnerable.”

James Jones (1921–1977) American author

“Entrails. No hissing. This is the closest we will ever come to love.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

“I can love only what I can place so high above me that I cannot reach it.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

“The person doing the worrying experiences it as a form of love; the person being worried about experiences it as a form of control.”

John Lanchester book Capital

Source: Capital

Personality

“I hated him more than anything. I loved him more than anything. Because, he was everything. And I hated that, too.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: It's Not Summer Without You

Hate

“you'll see, jane,' he promised her. 'you'll forget me, and it won't hurt tomorrow. besides, you said it yourself: love means you cαn never be apart. so we'll never be apart, jane, becαuse i love you so much. i'll always, always love you.”

James Patterson book Sundays at Tiffany's

Source: Sundays at Tiffany's

Hurt, Forgetting

“Let love write on you for awhile.”

Jonathan Safran Foer (1977) Novelist

“Lover? I don't know. I don't know if she loves me. I don't know if I love her. All I can say is, she's the one I think about. All the time. She's the voice I want to hear. She's the face I hope to see.”

Sophie Kinsella book I've Got Your Number

Source: I've Got Your Number

Hope, Lovers, Thinking, Time

“Fear can’t be reasoned with. Neither can hate. They’re like love. They’re almost identical emotions. That’s why Ares and Aphrodite like each other. Their twin sons – Fear and Panic – were spawned from both war and love.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Hate, War, Fear

“All that you've loved is all you own”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

“It's good to be in love.”

Kim Edwards book The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Source: The Memory Keeper's Daughter

“I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Hate, Change

“One could be happy not only without love, but despite it.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Happiness

“Love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
A Brave and Startling Truth.”

Maya Angelou book A Brave and Startling Truth

A Brave and Startling Truth (1995)

Truth

“sometime hate is just confused love!”

Omar Tyree (1969) American writer

Hate

“You have never loved me as I love you--never--never! Yours is not a passionate heart--your heart does not burn in a flame! You are, upon the whole, a sort of fay, or sprite-- not a woman!”

Thomas Hardy book Jude the Obscure

Source: Jude the Obscure

Passion, Heart

“Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.”

James Baldwin If Beale Street Could Talk

Source: If Beale Street Could Talk

Indifference

“How about a cheer
For all those bad girls
And all the boys
That play that rock and roll?
They love it
Like you love Jesus.
It does the same thing
To their souls.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Have Love Will Travel
Lyrics, The Last DJ (2002)

Soul, Girl, Boy

“I couldn't tell fact from fiction,
Or if the dream was true
My only sure prediction
In this world was you.
I'd touch your features inchly. Beard love and dared the cost, The sented spiel reeled me unreal And I found my senses lost.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

World, Dreams, Sense

“I love everybody. Each one plays the role they have to play…”

Meher Baba (1894–1969) Indian mystic

Statement to Delia DeLeon in 1948, as quoted in How A Master Works (1975) by Ivy Oneita Duce, p. 457.
General sources
Context: I love everybody. Each one plays the role they have to play, but in the spiritual arena there are people who are even closer to me than that.
Context: I don't usually explain about Mehera to anyone. But I will tell you this. Don't you think I love Mani? Well, Mehera plays the same role to me that the Virgin Mary played to Jesus. She is like my skin — she protects, she feels every thought I feel. But I love everybody. Each one plays the role they have to play, but in the spiritual arena there are people who are even closer to me than that.

“Think how you love me," she whispered. "I don’t ask you to love me always like this, but I ask you to remember. Somewhere inside me there’ll always be the person I am to-night.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book Tender Is the Night

Variant: I don't ask you to love me always like this but I ask you to remember. Somewhere inside of me there will always be the person I am tonight.
Source: Tender Is the Night

Thinking, Personality, Night

“Love is like moonlight or thunder, or rain on a tin roof in the middle of the night; it is one of those things in life that is truly worth knowing.”

Sonya Hartnett (1968) Australian writer

Source: The Ghost's Child

Life, Night