c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move.We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness insidethat holds whatever we want.We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner spacethat makes it livable.We work with being, but non-being is what we use.
— Lao Tzu
I love you every day. And now I will miss you every day.
— Mitch Albom, For One More Day
If you follow the will of God, you know that in spite of all the terrible things that happen to you, you will never lose a final refuge. You know that the foundation of the world is love, so that even when no human being can or will help you, you may go on, trusting in the One that loves you.
— Pope Benedict XVI
Love demands expression. It will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no. It will break out in tongues of praise, the high note that smashes the glass and spills the liquid.
— Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body
To long a sacrifice can make a stone of a heart
— W.B. Yeats
Ten long trips around the sun since I last saw that smile, but only joy and thankfulness that on a tiny world in the vastness, for a couple of moments in the immensity of time, we were one.
— Ann Druyan
You act young," he said, "because you are young. But you know things, Roza. Things people older than you don't even know. That day...." I knew instantly which day he referred to. The one up against the wall. "You were right, about how I fight to stay in control. No one else has ever figured that out- and it scared me. You scare me.""Why? Don't you want anyone to know?"He shrugged. "Whether they know that fact or not doesn't matter. What matters is that someone- that you- know me that well. When a person can see into your soul, it's hard. It forces you to be open. Vulnerable. It's much easier being with someone who's just more of a casual friend.""Like Tasha.""Tasha Ozera is an amazing woman. She's beautiful and she's brave. But she doesn't-""She doesn't get you," I finished.He nodded. "I knew that. But I still wanted the relationship. I knew it would be easy and that she could take me away from you. I thought she could make me forget you."I'd thought the same thing about Mason. "But she couldn't.""Yes. And, so.....that's a problem.
— Richelle Mead, Frostbite
It wasn't a thing I had consciously missed, but having it now reminded me of the joy of it; that drowsy intimacy in which a man's body is accessible to you as your own, the strange shapes and textures of it like a sudden extension of your own limbs.
— Diana Gabaldon, Voyager
Love is bullshit. Emotion is bullshit. I am a rock. A jerk. I'm an uncaring asshole and proud of it.
— Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
Darkness may hide the treesand the flowers from the eyesbut it cannot hidelove from the soul.
— Kahlil Gibran, Love Letters in the Sand: The Love Poems of Khalil Gibran
You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, a single power, a single salvation...and that is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing else.
— Hermann Hesse, Wer lieben kann, ist glücklich. Über die Liebe
I felt his other hand sear hot against my cheek. He bent his head, and in a voice that Jack couldn’t hear, said, “When you came down the stairs, and fell into me, that was the moment.” Then his lips pressed against mine.
— Sarah Alderson, Hunting Lila
Your salary is not love and your word is not love. Your clothes are not love and holding hands is not love. Sex is not love and a kiss is not love. Long letters are not love and a text is not love. Flowers are not love and a box of chocolates is not love. Sunsets are not love and photographs are not love. The stars are not love and a beach under the moonlight is not love. The smell of someone else on your pillow is not love and the feeling of their skin touching your skin is not love. Heart-shaped candy is not love and an overseas holiday is not love. The truth is not love and winning an argument is not love. Warm coffee isn't love and cheap cards bought from stores are not love. Tears are not love and laughter is not love. A head on a shoulder is not love and messages written at the front of books given as gifts are not love. Apathy is not love and numbness is not love. A pain in your chest is not love and clenching your fist is not love. Rain is not love.Only you. Only you, are love.
— pleasefindthis, I Wrote This For You
I'm afraid they're in love," he said, concerned. "They don't want to leave you." He lifted one hand from her waist to gently brush a pair from her neck, where their wings fanned against her jaw. Melancholy, he said, "I know just how they feel.
— Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone
You don't fall in love with someone because it's convenient.
— Harriet Evans, A Hopeless Romantic
Nico studied his face – his sea-green eyes, his grin, his ruffled black hair. Somehow Percy Jackson seemed like a regular guy now, not a mythical figure. Not someone to idolize or crush on.
— Rick Riordan, The Blood of Olympus
What I was trying to say,” he whispered, “is that I see you in everything. There isn’t a word for you that means enough, because you’re everything to me.
— Veronica Rossi, Into the Still Blue
In the slaughterhouse of love, they kill only the best, none of the weak or deformed. Don't run away from this dying. Whoever's not killed for love is dead meat.
— Jalaluddin Rumi
Things could change, Gabe," Jonas went on. "Things could be different. I don't know how, but there must be some way for things to be different. There could be colors. And grandparents," he added, staring through the dimness toward the ceiling of his sleepingroom. "And everybody would have the memories.""You know the memories," he whispered, turning toward the crib.Garbriel's breathing was even and deep. Jonas liked having him there, though he felt guilty about the secret. Each night he gave memories to Gabriel: memories of boat rides and picnics in the sun; memories of soft rainfall against windowpanes; memories of dancing barefoot on a damp lawn."Gabe?"The newchild stirred slightly in his sleep. Jonas looked over at him."There could be love," Jonas whispered.
— Lois Lowry, The Giver
You'd be surprised what people will do for money that they wouldn't do forlove.Myrnin.
— Rachel Caine, Bite Club
Hmm…now that I think about it, housecats are often coddled and petted. You don’t pet me nearly enough. You must be a lax owner. How selfish of you to deprive your cat of attention.
— Colleen Houck
She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her... I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her...
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
I love you more than songs can say, but I can't keep running after yesterday...
— John Mayer, John Mayer - Battle Studies
I love Jere more than anybody. He’s my brother, my family. I hate myself for doing this. But when I see you two together, I hate him too.” His voice broke.“Don’t marry him. Don’t be with him. Be with me.
— Jenny Han, We'll Always Have Summer
It’s impossible,” he snapped. “Why?” “Because I’m Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent. I can’t be celibate. Everyone knows that.
— Lisa Kleypas, Devil in Winter
Right then, I wanted to go back in time and relive every moment with him. One more secret smile, one more shared laugh. One more electric kiss. Finding him was like finding someone I didn't know I was searching for. He’d come into my life too late, and now was leaving too soon. I remembered him telling me he’d give up everything for me. He already had.
— Becca Fitzpatrick, Hush, Hush
God is love," she said. "And he respects love, whether it's between a parents, and child, a man and woman, or friends. I don't think he cares about religion one little bit. Live your life right. Love with all your heart. Don't hurt others, and help those in need. That is all you need to know. And don't worry about heaven. If it exists, you'll be welcome.
— Ellen Hopkins, Burned
...no woman can love a weak man hard enough to make him strong.
— Pearl Cleage, Just Wanna Testify
You don't need to justify your love, you don't need to explain your love, you just need to practice your love. Practice creates the master.
— Miguel Ruiz, The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship
A girl can wait for the right man to come along but in the meantime that doesn't mean she can't have a wonderful time with all the wrong ones
— Cher
... it’s a blessed thing to love and feel loved in return.
— E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly
The sun's gone dim, and the moon's gone black. For I loved him, and he didn't love back.
— Dorothy Parker
She puts her hands on either side of my face, and the room falls away. I have never gotten so lost in a kiss before. And then, the space between us explodes. My heart keeps missing beats and my hands cannot bring her close enough to me. I taste her and realize I have been starving. I have loved before, but it didn't feel like this.I have kissed before, but it didn't burn me alive. Maybe it lasts a minute, and maybe it's an hour. All I know is that kiss, and how soft her skin is when it brushes against mine, and that even if I did not know it until now, I have been waiting for this person forever.
— Jodi Picoult
A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else.
— Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
... i didn't fall in love of courseit's never up to youbut she was walking back and forthand i was passing through
— Leonard Cohen, Book of Longing
Now, as we stand three feet apart and stare at each other, I feel the full distance that comes with spending so much time apart, a moment filled with the electricity of a first meeting and the uncertainty of strangers.
— Marie Lu, Champion
Happiness is the china shop love is the bull. 
— H.L. Mencken
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, Bag of Bones
Ronan's second secret was Adam Parrish.
— Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves
When a man finds the woman he really loves, the one he respects and wants to call wife, there is nothing on earth he won't do for her. No mountain he won't hike. No river he won't wade. No door he won't open. She is Eve and there's not a snake crawling that can keep them apart.
— Yolanda Joe
It's funny. No matter how hard you try, you can't close your heart forever. And the minute you open it up, you never know what's going to come in. But when it does, you just have to go for it! Because if you don't, there's not point in being here.
— Kirstie Alley
If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon?
— Margaret Atwood, Power Politics
Gilbert, I'm afraid I'm scandalously in love with you.
— L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars
Clary shut her eyes. You didn't say no to an angel, no matter what it had in mind. Her heart pounding, she sat floating in the darkness behind her eyelids, resolutely trying not to think of Jace. But his face appear against the blank screen of her closed eyelids anyway - not smiling at her but looking sidelong, and she could see the scar at his temple, the uneven curl at the corner of his mouth, and the silver line on his throat where Simon had bitten him - all the marks and flaws and imperfections that made up the person she loved most in the world. Jace. A bright light lit her vision to scarlet, and she fell back against the sand, wondering if she was going to pass out - or maybe she was dying - but she didn't want to die, not now that she could see Jace's face so clearly in front of her. She could almost hear his voice, too, saying her name, the way he'd whispered it at Renwick's, over and over again. Clary. Clary. Clary."Clary," Jace said. "Open your eyes.
— Cassandra Clare, City of Glass
Think of it! We could have gone on longing for one another and pretending not to notice forever. This obsession with dignity can ruin your life if you let it.
— Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Do you think we can be friends?” I asked.He stared up at the ceiling. “Probably not, but we can pretend.
— Priya Ardis, Ever My Merlin
The fact that Ridge has been honest in his conversations with me is not something he did wrong. The fact that he has feelings for me also isn’t wrong, when you know exactly how much he’s fought those feelings. People can’t control matters of the heart, Warren. They can only control their actions, which is exactly what Ridge did. He lost control once for ten seconds, but after that, every single time temptation reared its ugly head, he walked in the other direction. The only thing Ridge has done wrong is fail to delete his messages, because by doing so, he failed to protect Maggie. He failed to protect her from the harsh truth that people don’t get to choose who they fall in love with. They only get to choose who they stay in love with.” I look up at the ceiling and blink back tears. “He was choosing to stay in love with her, Warren. Why can’t she see that? This will kill him so much more than it’s killing her.
— Colleen Hoover, Maybe Someday
Never fall in love?""Always," said the count. "I am always in love.
— Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
When love first happens, the individuals are giving each other energy unconsciously and both people feel buoyant and elated. That's the incredible high we call being ‘in love.’ Unfortunately, once they expect this feeling to come from another person, they cut themselves off from the energy in the universe and begin to rely even more on the energy from each other--only now there doesn’t seem to be enough and so they stop giving each other energy and fall back into their dramas in an attempt to control each other and force the other’s energy their way.
— James Redfield, The Celestine Prophecy
For Beatrice, when we first met, I was lonely, and you were pretty.Now I am pretty lonely.
— Lemony Snicket, The Slippery Slope
The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But...the good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?
— Martin Luther King Jr.
This is what I know. Don't settle for 40, 50, or even 80 percent. A relationship-it shouldn't be too small or too tight or even a little scratchy. It shouldn't take up space in your closet out of guilty conscience or convenience or a moment of desire. Do you hear me? It shold be perfect for you. It should be lasting. Wait. wait for 100 percent.
— Deb Caletti, The Secret Life of Prince Charming
Time has no meaning,Love will endure..
— Jude Deveraux
If people did not love one another, I really don't see what use there would be in having any spring.
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
I am yours.Don't give myself back to me.
— Jalaluddin Rumi
Love at first sight is easy to understand
— Amy Bloom
Marriage is not a process for prolonging the life of love, sir. It merely mummifies its corpse.
— P.G. Wodehouse, The Small Bachelor
I wanted to see the place where Margaret grew to what she is, even at the worst time of all, when I had no hope of ever calling her mine.
— Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
And I still love you in my own fucked-up way. I miss you, I really do. Can we still be friends?
— Matthew Quick, The Silver Linings Playbook
He shakes his head, and he's saying something, and I think I might kiss him. Because I've never kissed anyone before. (I was afraid I might bite.) And I've never wanted to kiss anyone but him. (I won't bite. I won't hurt him.) I just want to kiss him, then go. "Simon...," I say. And then he kisses me.
— Rainbow Rowell, Carry On
One loves truly only once in a lifetime, Julian, even if one isn’t aware of it.
— Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
You know, when it works, love is amazing. It's not overrated.
— Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby
In my crazy world, above all others...you were the only one who was the ugliest. And you were the only one...who was the most beautiful.... This is the unspoken truth.
— Kaori Yuki
When you want something this badly, you don't just give up. You fight and fight until you absolutely can't fight anymore.
— Gail McHugh, Collide
If you say a word, it leaps out and becomes the truth. I love you. I believe it. I believe I am loveable. How can something as fragile as a word build a whole world?
— Franny Billingsley, Chime
The quickest path to self-destruction is to push away the people you love.
— Cassia Leo, Pieces of You
and all I could think was that I would like to spend every morning for the rest of my life waking up beside her
— Nicholas Sparks, Dear John
A wonderful gift may not be wrapped as you expect.
— Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Do you love him?"Deryn swallowed, then pointed at the screen. "He makes me feel like that. Like flying.
— Scott Westerfeld, Goliath
It’s just so strange.You used to love me,and now you’re a strangerwho happens to know allof my secrets.
— Clementine von Radics
If you claim to be a real friend then be real in your soul. If you claim to be fake then be an enemy instead.
— Santosh Kalwar
I would know you anywhere for my true love. Whoever I was and whoever you were, I would know you at once for my true love.
— Philippa Gregory, The Other Boleyn Girl
Animals are reliable, many full of love, true in their affections, predictable in their actions, grateful and loyal. Difficult standards for people to live up to.
— Alfred A. Montapert
Just Me, Just MeSweet Marie, she loves just me(She also loves Maurice McGhee).No she don't, she loves just me(She also loves Louise Dupree).No she don't, she loves just me(She also loves the willow tree).No she don't, she loves just me!(Poor, poor fool, why can't you seeShe can love others and still love thee.)
— Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends
I wondered if the person who really loves you is the person who knows all your stories, the person who WANTS to know all your stories.
— Gabrielle Zevin, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
You'll have a good, secure life when being alive means more to you than security, love more than money, your freedom more than public or partisan opinion, when the mood of Beethoven's or Bach's music becomes the mood of your whole life … when your thinking is in harmony, and no longer in conflict, with your feelings … when you let yourself be guided by the thoughts of great sages and no longer by the crimes of great warriors … when you pay the men and women who teach your children better than the politicians; when truths inspire you and empty formulas repel you; when you communicate with your fellow workers in foreign countries directly, and no longer through diplomats...
— Wilhelm Reich, Listen, Little Man!
A heart, once stolen, can never be taken back.
— Marissa Meyer, Heartless
You were on the other side of the world, but I often woke with the scent of you surrounding me. I ached for you, Kells. No matter how much Kishan thrashed me, it couldn’t diminish the pain of losing you. I’d dream of you and reach out to touch you, but you were always just out of reach.
— Colleen Houck
There's a pleasure to loving someone even when you know there's no chance in them loving you back. The pain I felt let me know I was still alive.
— Gabrielle Zevin, Margarettown
We are bound together, Emma, bound together—I breathe when you breathe, I bleed when you bleed, I’m yours and you’re mine, you’ve always been mine, and I have always, always belonged to you!
— Cassandra Clare, Lady Midnight
She loved him. But he didn’t know how to love.He could talk about love. He could see love and feel love. But he couldn’t give love.He could make love. But he couldn’t make promises.She had desperately wanted his promises.She wanted his heart, knew she couldn’t have it so she took what she could get.Temporary bliss. Passionate highs and lows. Withdrawal and manipulation.He only stayed long enough to take what he needed and keep moving.If he stopped moving, he would self-destruct.If he stopped wandering, he would have to face himself.He chose to stay in the dark where he couldn’t see.If he exposed himself and the sun came out, he’d see his shadow.He was deathly afraid of his shadow.She saw his shadow, loved it, understood it. Saw potential in it.She thought her love would change him.He pushed and he pulled, tested boundaries, thinking she would never leave.He knew he was hurting her, but didn’t know how to share anything but pain.He was only comfortable in chaos. Claiming souls before they could claim him.Her love, her body, she had given to him and he’d taken with such feigned sincerity, absorbing every drop of her.His dark heart concealed.She’d let him enter her spirit and stroke her soul where everything is love and sensation and surrender.Wide open, exposed to deception.It had never occurred to her that this desire was not love.It was blinding the way she wanted him.She couldn’t see what was really happening, only what she wanted to happen.She suspected that he would always seek to minimize the risk of being split open, his secrets revealed.He valued his soul’s privacy far more than he valued the intimacy of sincere connection so he kept his distance at any and all costs.Intimacy would lead to his undoing—in his mind, an irrational and indulgent mistake.When she discovered his indiscretions, she threw love in his face and beat him with it.Somewhere deep down, in her labyrinth, her intricacy, the darkest part of her soul, she relished the mayhem.She felt a sense of privilege for having such passion in her life.He stirred her core.The place she dared not enter.The place she could not stir for herself.But something wasn’t right.His eyes were cold and dark.His energy, unaffected.He laughed at her and her antics, told her she was a mess.Frantic, she looked for love hiding in his eyes, in his face, in his stance, and she found nothing but disdain.And her heart stopped.
— G.G. Renee Hill, The Beautiful Disruption
To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.
— David Viscott
If our testimonies are strong onthis point and if we feel the absolute assurance that God loves us, we will change our questons. We won't ask, 'Why did this happen?' or 'Why doesn't God care about me?' Instead, our questions will become, 'What can I learn from this experience?' or 'How does the Lord want me to handle this?
— John Bytheway, When Times Are Tough: 5 Scriptures That Will Help You Get Through Almost Anything
I've never wanted more, until I met you.
— E.L. James, Fifty Shades of Grey
Love makes the world go round? Not at all. Whiskey makes it go round twice as fast.
— Compton Mackenzie
Once you figure out who you are and what you love about yourself, I think it all kind of falls into place.
— Jennifer Aniston
If someone does not want me it is not the end of the world. But if I do not want me, the world is nothing but endings.
— Nayyirah Waheed
One is never wounded by the love one gives, only by the love one expects.
— Marty Rubin
I feel like myself, strong and weak at once - allowed, at least for a little while, to be both.
— Veronica Roth, Allegiant
It’s not so much the journey that’s important; as is the way that we treat those we encounter and those around us, along the way
— Jeremy Aldana
Language is the key to the heart of people.
— Ahmed Deedat
She wanted to lose herself in him. To tie his arms around her like a tourniquet.If she showed him how much she needed him, he'd run away.
— Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park
By night, Love, tie your heart to mine, and the two together in their sleep will defeat the darkness
— Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets
Mass is not proportional to volume. A girl as small as a violet. A girl who moves like a flower petal is pulling me toward her with more force than her mass. Just then, like Newton’s apple, I rolled toward her without stopping until I fell on her, with a thump. With a thump. My heart keeps bouncing between the sky and the ground. It was my first love.
— Kim In-yook,  “The Physics of Love”
If you have one parent who loves you, even if they can't buy you clothes, they're so poor and they make all kinds of mistakes and maybe sometimes they even give you awful advice, but never for one moment do you doubt their love for you--if you have this, you have incredibly good fortune.If you have two parents who love you? You have won life's Lotto.If you do not have parents, or if the parents you have are so broken and so, frankly, terrible that they are no improvement over nothing, this is fine.It's not ideal because it's harder without adults who love you more than they love themselves. But harder is just harder, that's all.
— Augusten Burroughs, This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.
He recognized her despite the uproar, through his tears of unrepeatable sorrow at dying without her, and he looked at her for the last and final time with eyes more luminous, more grief-stricken, more grateful than she had ever seen them in half a century of a shared life, and he managed to say to her with his last breath: “Only God knows how much I loved you
— Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
Real love is to offer your life at the feet of another.
— John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let the Right One In
Peace,love,empathy
— Kurt Cobain
The world is filled with love-play, from animal lust to sublime compassion.
— Alan W. Watts
Do you know what I see in you now? The usual aura. A steady golden yellow, healthy and strong, with spikes of purple here and there. But when I do this. . . .”He rested a hand on my hip, and my whole body tensed up. That hand moved around my hip, slipping under my shirt to rest on the small of my back. My skin burned where he touched me, and the places that were untouched longed for that heat.. The colors deepen, it burns more intensely, the purple increases. Why? Why, Sydney?” He used that hand on me to pull me closer. “Why do you react that way if I don’t mean anything to you?” There was a desperation in his voice, and it was legitimate.
— Richelle Mead, The Indigo Spell
Love. It was the beginning and end of everything, the foundation and the ceiling and the air in between.
— Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale
I wake up and tear drops, they fall down like rain. I put on that old song we danced to and then, I head off to my job cause not much has changed. Punch the clock, head for home, check the phone. Just in case. Go to bed, dream of you. That's what I am doing these days.
— Rascal Flatts
LOVE is a friendship set to music
— E. Joseph Cossman
You have been with me from the very first life. You are my first memory every time, the single thread in all of my lives. It`s you who makes me a person.
— Ann Brashares, My Name Is Memory
You see," she concluded miserably, "when I can call like that to him across space--I belong to him. He doesn't love me--he never will--but I belong to him.
— L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest
I imagine John Watson thinks love’s a mystery to me, but the chemistry is incredibly simple and very destructive. When we first met, you told me that a disguise is always a self portrait, how true of you, the combination to your safe – your measurements. But this is far more intimate. This is your heart, and you should never let it rule your head. You could have chosen any random number and walked out of here today with everything you worked for. But you just couldn’t resist it, could you? I’ve always assumed that love is a dangerous disadvantage. Thank you for the final proof.
— Mark Gatiss
What will survive of us is love.
— Philip Larkin, The Whitsun Weddings
I warn you, Kelsey, that I’m an extremely patient man. I’ve had extensive practice in waiting out the enemy. My life as a tiger has taught me that attentive persistence and focused diligence always pay off. Consider yourself forewarned, priyatama. I’m on the hunt. I’ve caught your scent, and I won’t be thwarted in my course.
— Colleen Houck
You'll probably die if you stay with me,' he told me.'Then I'm dead either way, because I won't survive without you.
— Julie Hockley, Crow's Row
Half the night I waste in sighs,Half in dreams I sorrow afterThe delight of early skies;In a wakeful dose I sorrowFor the hand, the lips, the eyes,For the meeting of the morrow,The delight of happy laughter,The delight of low replies.
— Alfred Tennyson, Maud, and other poems
They had an ordinary life, full of ordinary things-if love can ever be called that.
— Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising
I am lonely, yet not everybody will do. I don’t know why, some people fill the gaps and others emphasize my loneliness.
— Anaïs Nin
You are mine,I am yours; you may be sure of this. You've been locked inside my heart, the key has been thrown away; within it, you must always stay. 
— Andrew Davidson, The Gargoyle
Jace broke off the kiss and stepped back with an exhale; before Clary could say anything, a chorus of sarcastic applause broke out from the nearby hill. Simon, Isabelle, and Alec waved at them. Jace bowed while Clary stepped back slightly sheepishly, hooking her thumbs into the belt of her jeansJace sighed. "Shall we join our annoying, voyeuristic friends?""Unfortunately, that's the only kind of friends we have.
— Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire
We are so limited, you have to use the same word for loving Rosaleen as you do for loving Coke with peanuts. Isn't that a shame we don't have many more ways to say it?
— Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees
Love is another kind of power, which shouldn't surprise you. Magic comes from emotions, among other things. And when two people are together, in that intimacy, when they really, selflessly love each other it changes them both. It lingers on in the energy of their lives, even when they are apart.
— Jim Butcher, Blood Rites
I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do. I am going to write fire until it comes out of my ears, my eyes, my noseholes--everywhere. Until it's every breath I breathe. I'm going to go out like a fucking meteor!
— Audre Lorde
Why is it so hard to articulate love yet so easy to express disappointment?
— Kaui Hart Hemmings, The Descendants
Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?
— Ayn Rand
The anticipation and dread he felt at seeing her was also a kind of sensual pleasure, and surrounding it, like an embrace, was a general elation--it might hurt, it was horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but he had found out for himself what it was to be in love, and it thrilled him.
— Ian McEwan, Atonement
The opposite of love is not hate. It is indifference.
— Christopher Pike, Black Blood
If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say like artists, we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces. Here it is love that is the frame we see them in.
— Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter's Dictionary
In the darkness, he is invisible, but I can still feel him beside me. Sometimes you don't have to see something to know it is there.
— Maggie Stiefvater, Forever
With friends, if you keep making an effort to reach out and you keep getting hurt, you eventually stop trying. But it's much harder to give up on family. Somewhere deep down you want it to work so badly that you keep making the same mistake over and over again.
— Tori Spelling
He went through life with his hands firmly shoved into his pockets. She danced.
— Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove
Yet nothing can to nothing fall,Nor any place be empty quite;Therefore I think my breast hath allThose pieces still, though they be not unite;And now, as broken glasses showA hundred lesser faces, soMy rags of heart can like, wish, and adore,But after one such love, can love no more.
— John Donne, The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose
Valentine WeatherKiss me with rain on your eyelashes,come on, let us sway together,under the trees, and to hell with thunder.
— Edwin Morgan, A Book of Lives
Losing you is most difficult for me, but the nature of my love for you is what matters. If it distorts into half-truth, then perhaps it is better not to love you. I must keep my mind but loose you.
— Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
I don't know what you think of me. And you certainly would never picture us together. But probably peanut butter was just peanut butter for a long time, before someone ever thought of pairing it with jelly. And there was salt, but it started to taste better when there was pepper. And what's the point of butter without bread? (Why are all these examples of FOODS?!!?!?!?!?!?!) Anyway by myself I'm nothing special. But with you I could be.
— Jodi Picoult, Nineteen Minutes
It's delicious to have people adore you, but it's exhausting, too. Particularly when your own feelings don't match theirs.
— Tasha Alexander, A Fatal Waltz
think when it's all over it just comes back in flashes, you know? It's like a kaleidoscope of memories; it just all comes back. But he never does. I think part of me knew the second I saw him that this would happen. It's not really anything he said, or anything he did ― it was the feeling that came along with it. Crazy thing is, I don't know if I'm ever going to feel that way again. But I don't know if I should. I knew his world moved too fast and burned too bright, but I just thought, 'How can the devil be pulling you toward someone who looks so much like an angel when he smiles at you?' Maybe he knew that when he saw me. I guess I just lost my balance. I think that the worst part of it all wasn't losing him. It was losing me.
— Taylor Swift
I'm as cruel as life. As cruel as love.
— L.J. Smith, The Forbidden Game
I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love.
— Frank O'Hara
I think that when we look for love courageously, it reveals itself, and we wind up attracting even more love. If one person really wants us, everyone does. But if we’re alone, we become even more alone. Life is strange.
— Paulo Coelho
The library smells like old books — a thousand leather doorways into other worlds. I hear silence, like the mind of God. I feel a presence in the empty chair beside me. The librarian watches me suspiciously. But the library is a sacred place, and I sit with the patron saint of readers. Pulsing goddess light moves through me for one moment like a glimpse of eternity instantly forgotten. She is gone. I smell mold, I hear the clock ticking, I see an empty chair. Ask me now and I'll say this is just a place where you can't play music or eat. She's gone. The library sucks.
— Laura Whitcomb, A Certain Slant of Light
Akkarin: I watched the first woman I loved die. I dont think I can survive losing the second.Sonea: I love you too.
— Trudi Canavan, The High Lord
Love is Love no matter old you are, and I knew if I gave you enough time, you'd come back to me.
— Nicholas Sparks, Message in a Bottle
if they put an iron circle around your neck I will bite it away
— Toni Morrison, Beloved
There's no need to wait for the bad things and bullshit to be over. Change now. Love now. Live now. Don't wait for people to give you permission to live, because they won't.
— Kris Carr, Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, and Live Like You Mean It!
There is peace even in the storm
— Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
Do you think it’s easy for me? No, I don’t remember you. I don’t remember holding you or talking to you or falling in love with you—but I walk around with a giant hole in my heart all the time. I feel your absence every second of the day. It aches and nothing soothes it. Losing you is bad enough, but I don’t even get the comfort of remembering that I had you once.-Haden
— Gwen Hayes, Falling Under
I had fallen too far. I was in love with Rush Finlay.
— Abbi Glines, Fallen Too Far
That I shall love always, I argue theethat love is life,and life hath immortality
— Emily Dickinson
You see the first thing we love is a scene. For love at first sight requires the very sign of its suddenness; and of all things, it is the scene which seems to be seen best for the first time: a curtain parts and what had not yet ever been seen is devoured by the eyes: the scene consecrates the object I am going to love. The context is the constellation of elements, harmoniously arranged that encompass the experience of the amorous subject...Love at first sight is always spoken in the past tense. The scene is perfectly adapted to this temporal phenomenon: distinct, abrupt, framed, it is already a memory (the nature of a photograph is not to represent but to memorialize)... this scene has all the magnificence of an accident: I cannot get over having had this good fortune: to meet what matches my desire. interval, something has been successful: I have been fulfilled (all my desires abolished by the plenitude of their satisfaction).
— Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse: Fragments
Your inner strength is your outer foundation
— Allan Rufus
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone one who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
— Anonymous, The New Testament
Celia, wait,” Marco says, standing but not moving closer to her. “You are breaking my heart. You told me once that I reminded you of your father. That you never wanted to suffer the way your mother did for him, but you are doing exactly that to me. You keep leaving me. You leave me longing for you again and again when I would give anything for you to stay, and it is killing me.” “It has to kill one of us,” Celia says quietly.
— Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
You have the power to tear me to pieces, to wound me so deep and true that I'll never recover. What Rissa's death did to the boy I was? You have the ability to do a thousand times worse to the man I've become.
— Nalini Singh, Kiss of Snow
Sought we the Scrivani word-work of SurthurLong-lost in ledger all hope forgotten.Yet fast-found for friendship fair the book-bringerHot comes the huntress Fela, flushed with findingBreathless her breast her high blood risingTo ripen the red-cheek rouge-bloom of beauty.“That sort of thing,” Simmon said absently, his eyes still scanning the pages in front of him.I saw Fela turn her head to look at Simmon, almost as if she were surprised to see him sitting there.No, it was almost as if up until that point, he’d just been occupying space around her, like a piece of furniture. But this time when she looked at him, she took all of him in. His sandy hair, the line of his jaw, the span of his shoulders beneath his shirt. This time when she looked, she actually saw him.Let me say this. It was worth the whole awful, irritating time spent searching the Archives just to watch that moment happen. It was worth blood and the fear of death to see her fall in love with him. Just a little. Just the first faint breath of love, so light she probably didn’t notice it herself. It wasn’t dramatic, like some bolt of lightning with a crack of thunder following. It was more like when flint strikes steel and the spark fades almost too fast for you to see. But still, you know it’s there, down where you can’t see, kindling.
— Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear
I've been in love with you since you helped me bury that spider in my garden, and you sang with me like we were singing “Amazing Grace” instead of “The Itsy, Bitsy Spider.” I've loved you since you quoted Hamlet like you understood him, since you said you loved ferris wheels more than roller coasters because life shouldn't be lived at full speed, but in anticipation and appreciation. I read and re-read your letters to Rita because I felt like you'd opened up a little window into your soul, and the light was pouring out with every word. They weren't even for me, but it didn't matter. I loved every word, every thought, and I loved you . . . so much.
— Amy Harmon, Making Faces
You're better than seven years of food. You're better than windows. You're even better than the sky.
— Shannon Hale, Book of a Thousand Days
Contrary to what we may have been taught to think, unnecessary and unchosen suffering wounds us but need not scar us for life. It does mark us. What we allow the mark of our suffering to become is in our own hands.
— bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions
To love another human in all of her splendor and imperfect perfection , it is a magnificent task...tremendous and foolish and human.
— Louise Erdrich, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse
What made you fall in love with a prostitute?”“I didn’t understand it myself at the time. But I’ve thought about it since, and I think it was because, knowing that your body would never be mine alone, I had to concentrate on conquering your soul.
— Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes
...and you drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, 'That was fine'. And your life is a long line of fine.
— Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl
I love you, Missy girl. Even if I can't be with you, know that I'm here. So, that's it. More than the stars, Taylor. More than the stars.
— Chelsea M. Cameron, My Favorite Mistake
People don't need love. What they need is success in one form or another. It can be love but it needn't be.
— Charles Bukowski, Factotum
Gabe?"The newchild stirred slightly in his sleep. Jonas looked over at him. "There could be love", Jonas whispered.
— Lois Lowry, The Giver
There will be no more British guys. Unless they are members of the royal family, of course. 
— Meg Cabot, Queen of Babble
The difference between the love of a man and the love of a woman is that a man will always give reasons for loving, but a woman gives no reasons for loving.
— Fulton J. Sheen, Life Is Worth Living
But where was God now, with heaven full of astronauts, and the Lord overthrown? I miss God. I miss the company of someone utterly loyal. I still don't think of God as my betrayer. The servants of God, yes, but servants by their very nature betray. I miss God who was my friend. I don't even know if God exists, but I do know that if God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it. I have an idea that one day it might be possible, I thought once it had become possible, and that glimpse has set me wandering, trying to find the balance between earth and sky. If the servants hadn't rushed in and parted us, I might have been disappointed, might have snatched off the white samite to find a bowl of soup. As it is, I can't settle, I want someone who is fierce and will love me until death and know that love is as strong as death, and be on my side for ever and ever. I want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me. There are many forms of love and affection, some people can spend their whole lives together without knowing each other's names. Naming is a difficult and time-consuming process; it concerns essences, and it means power. But on the wild nights who can call you home? Only the one who knows your name. Romantic love has been diluted into paperback form and has sold thousands and millions of copies. Somewhere it is still in the original, written on tablets of stone. I would cross seas and suffer sunstroke and give away all I have, but not for a man, because they want to be the destroyer and never the destroyed.
— Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
A broken heart is just the growing pains necessary so that you can love more completely when the real thing comes along.
— J.S.B. Morse, Now and at the Hour of Our Death
Love, too, has to be learned.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science
I've got you. I swear to God, I've got you," said Noah. "Stay with me, Echo."I wanted to. I wanted to stay with him, but the shouting and screams and glass breaking in my mind grew louder. "Make it stop."He tightened his grip on my arms. "Fight, Echo! You've got to fucking fight. Come on, baby. You're safe.
— Katie McGarry, Pushing the Limits
Love me sweet With all thou art Feeling, thinking, seeing; Love me in the Lightest part, Love me in full Being.
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning
It may be that you are settled in another place it may be that you are happy but the one who took your heart wields final power.
— Jeanette Winterson, The Passion
I could still feel the ghost of him hovering in the quiet, dark recess of my heart. It was as if he was just waiting for me to be lonely, or to let my guard down, so that he could surface and fill my mind again with thoughts of him.
— Colleen Houck
When I walk, I walk with you. Where I go, you're with me always.
— Alice Hoffman, The Story Sisters
...he had a way of taking your hand which made it clear he'd have to be the one to let go."From Alice Hoffman's "Local Girls", pg.102.
— Alice Hoffman, Local Girls
I will give you this, my love, and I will not bargain or barter any longer. I will love you, as sure as He has loved me. I will discover what I can discover and though you remain a mystery, save God's own knowledge, what I disclose of you I will keep in the warmest chamber of my heart, the very chamber where God has stowed Himself in me. And I will do this to my death, and to death it may bring me. I will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God. I will stop expecting your love, demanding you love, trading for your love, gaming for your love. I will simply love. I am giving myself to you, and tomorrow I will do it again. I suppose the clock itself will wear thin its time before I am ended at this altar of dying and dying again. God risked Himself on me. I will risk myself on you. And together, we will learn to love, and perhaps then, and only then, understand this gravity that drew Him, unto us.
— Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
Only you could be more important than what I wanted...what I needed. What I want and what I need is to be with you, and I know I'll never be strong enough to leave again.
— Stephenie Meyer, New Moon
Love is the most selfish of all the passions.
— Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers
There are not enough days in forever to allow me to fully express the depth of my love for you.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
What a man wants is a mate and what a woman wants is infinite security,’ and, ‘What a man is is an arrow into the future and a what a woman is is the place the arrow shoots off from.
— Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
It's amazing how people can sound like retards when they're talking to their girlfriend, especially if they really love her a lot. Because when you're just fucking someone you make a point of keeping your cool, but when you're really in love - it can sound pretty repulsive.
— Etgar Keret, The Nimrod Flipout: Stories
I didn't call you because I'm tired of you only wanting me around when you need something. I'm tired of watching you be in love with someone else - someone, incidentally, who will never love you back. Not the way I do.
— Cassandra Clare, City of Glass
Any time not spent on love is wasted.
— Torquato Tasso
Do you remember the first time we made love?" He touched his lips to hers as he said it. "We rode up in the elevator like this and couldn't keep our hands off each other, couldn't get to each other quick enough. I was mad for you. I wanted you more than I wanted to keep breathing. I still do." He deepened the kiss as the elevator doors opened. "It's never going to change.
— J.D. Robb, Big Jack
Once for all, then, a short precept is given thee: Love, and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace, through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good.
— Augustine of Hippo, Homilies on the First Epistle of John
But this girl...she doesn’t feel pointless. She’s real and she’s beautiful and she fits perfectly when she’s in my arms. She makes me want to feel.
— Monica  Murphy, One Week Girlfriend