“This is what happened in love. One of you cried a lot and then both of you grew sarcastic.”

“It's an odd thing about love. When someone you love cries, your heart melts. But when someone you don't love cries, you look at them and think, Why are you telling 'me' this?”

“This is what we call love. When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there's no need at all to understand what's happening, because everything happens within you.”

“You died.
I cried.
And kept on getting up.
A little slower.
And a lot more deadly.”

“And that's when I realized that believing in God is as much like falling in love as it is like making a decision. Love is both something that happens to you and something you decide upon.”

“Where I grew up - I grew up on the north side of Akron, lived in the projects. So those scared and lonely nights - that's every night. You hear a lot of police sirens, you hear a lot of gunfire. Things that you don't want your kids to hear growing up.”

“What's the use of falling in love if you both remain inertly as you were?”

“That's what happens when you love someone… you notice and notice and notice.”

“Interestingly enough, what you do in a relationship that works is that you actually fall in love with what they could be. They could be the person that you project onto them and fall in love with, but it's going to take a hell of a lot of work. Both parties have no shortage of flaws, so you're bringing your flaws together, and that's going to produce a lot of friction, and you are going to have to engage in a lot of dialogue before you reach that level of perfection that you originally had in the other person's eyes. But maybe you can do it. Maybe you can do it. And then you would live happily ever after.”

“The boy never cried again, and he never forgot what he'd learned: that to love is to destroy, and that to be loved is to be the one destroyed.”