c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Women, in general, will find it difficult to turn from a man and stop demanding that he meets their needs, provides security, and protects their identity, and return to me. Men, in general, find it very hard to turn from the works of their hands, their own quests for power and security and significance, and turn to me.
— William Paul Young, The Shack
You're only responsible for being honest, not for someone else's reaction to your honesty.
— Kelli Jae Baeli, ISO
Love is beyond reason. Love is not measurable in words. Love cannot be partial it cannot have owners. Love is essentially beyond definition or concept. 
— Mabel Iam
One has only to set a loved human being against the fact that we are all in peril all the time to get back a sense of proportion. What does anything matter compared to the reality of love and its span, so brief at best, maintained against such odds?
— May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude
Women were excited after sex, wired becasue in their minds the relationship was on beginning. Men went to sleep m the because for the orgasm had arrived and the relationship was done.
— Eric Jerome Dickey, Pleasure
In relationships, there are no beginning and no end.
— Santosh Kalwar
Mismatches destroy us all, even the most tender ones, and most never have the courage to break someone else's heart to follow their own.
— Amy Guth, Three Fallen Women
When certain parts of our bodies are touched, certain enzymes and chemicals that trigger sexual desire are released into our system. The more our bodies are stimulated, the more chemicals are released and the greater our sexual desire grows until it becomes a virtually unstoppable flood.
— Myles Munroe, Waiting and Dating
I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to explain to Zoe one of the very saddest notions in love and life: sometimes the timing is wrong--and sometimes you realize the heart of the matter way to late in the game.
— Emily Giffin, Baby Proof
Sacrifices made for love are fine, unless the sacrifice is you.
— Kellie Elmore
For someone who is supposed to be a knight in shining armor, you're acting like an ass in aluminum foil.
— Lisa Logue, Cursed Secrets
There is no formula to relationships. They have to be negotiated in loving ways, with room for both parties, what they want and what they need, what they can do and what their life is like.
— Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie
You aren't alive if you aren't in need.
— Henry Cloud, Safe People: How to Find Relationships That Are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren't
Young love is so ridiculous, as is middle-aged and old love. And it’s also hilarious. When have you ever felt so vulnerable and wonderful and terrible at the same time?
— Grace Helbig
Better guilt than the terrible burden of freedom and responsibility.
— Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death
The best relationships are between two people who care more about each other's good than their own momentary pleasure.
— Joshua Harris, I Kissed Dating Goodbye Study Guide
She preferred imaginary heroes to real ones, because when tired of them, the former could be shut up in the tin kitchen till called for, and the latter were less manageable.
— Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
Each piece of glass is another piece of myself I gave to him. It's too bad I didn't keep any pieces for myself.
— Amanda Grace, But I Love Him
Look for the heart in a man before you look at what he has.
— Jonathan Anthony Burkett, Friends 2 Lovers: The Unthinkable
...there remained a strange formality between them, and her pleasure in his presence felt too much like missing him had felt during the last week.
— Robin McKinley, Pegasus
People are meant to go through life two by two. ’Tain’t natural to be lonesome.
— Thornton Wilder, Our Town
When a man has seen the woman whom he would have chosen if he had intended to marry speedily, his remaining a bachelor will usually depend on her resolution rather than on his.
— George Eliot, Middlemarch
A woman may be beautiful but have poor character. A man may be a business genius, making money left and right, but lack common courtesy, sensitivity, and compassion.
— Myles Munroe, Waiting and Dating
A wedding is and event, but marriage is a life.
— Myles Munroe, Waiting and Dating
A while back, when Dick & Barry & I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you *are* like, Barry proposed the idea of a questionnaire for potential partners, a 2 or 3 page multiple-choice document that covered all the music/film/TV/book bases. It was intended: a) to dispense with awkward conversation, and b) to prevent a chap from leaping into bed with someone who might, at a later date, turn out to have every Julio Iglesias record ever made. It amused us at the time... But there was an important & essential truth contained in the idea, and the truth was that these things matter, and it's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently, or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party.
— Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
There's something I have to say," I said seriously, looking her in the eye. She smiled. "Oookay." She was mocking me-mocking my tone-but I didn't care. "Okay. Here it is. I love you," I said. "And I never, ever wanted to hurt you. It's like, the number one thing I never want to do, but somehow, I keep doing it. And I'm sorry, I just...that's all I wanted to say all this time. All I was trying to do...with that thing with your dad, not telling you...was not to hurt you. And I'm sorry that I did. Alley stared at me. "And I'm sorry that I did it again. With the Chloe thing. Which was stupid. Like, really, really, stupid. And I-" "Can you just stop, for a second?" Ally said, holding up a hand. "What?" I said. "Can you say the first part again?" she asked, rolling her fingers around for a rewind. I racked my brain. "Um...I love you?" I said. "That's the part, Cuz I love you, too.
— Kieran Scott, He's So Not Worth It
There are only two ways to live your life. One as if all that matters is to have someone love and accept you. The other is as though loving and accepting another person is all that matters. Often, when you choose the second you get the first.
— Shannon L. Alder
Shall there be truth between us, as two men? Not as friends, but as enemies and equals?
— Stephen King, The Gunslinger
I don't talk with everybody because i am not everybody, i am single.
— Michael Bassey Johnson
Faithfulness in small things leads to faithfulness in great things, and never the other way around.
— Jerry L. Lewis, What God Can't Do
You wouldn't believe that so much could change just because a relationship ended.
— Nick Hornby, About a Boy
He was one of those quite rare adults who communicate with small children fairly well and who love them all impartially--not in a sugary way but in a businesslike fashion that may sometimes entail a hug, in the same way that closing a big business deal may call for a handshake.
— Stephen King, The Gunslinger
Among the many answers I have found, I believe love is the most beautiful and simple art that reflects the beauty of life.
— Mabel Iam
Dumped doesn't even begin to describe it. If you're going to use a trash metaphor, incinerated is more like it.
— Rachel Cohn, Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List
It is in our relations with other people that we gain a sense of ourselves; it's that, pretty much, that makes relations with other people unbearable.
— Michel Houellebecq, Platform
I was going to say the beginning is the good part, when it's all sparks and sparkles, before they are inevitably unmasked as assholes.
— Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone
It's not other people that hurt us, but what we feel about them
— Joseph Fink, Welcome to Night Vale
I realize the thing about a guy you've spent your whole life loving from afar is that even though he's real you've really made most of him up.
— Kirsten Smith, The Geography of Girlhood
I had a dream about you last night.. You thought you were a candy vampire, you were standing in the sun screaming 'I'm melting.
— Nicole McKay, I Had a Dream About You
I had a dream about you last night... I was a brick and you were a blanket. Damn that improbability drive.
— Nicole McKay, I Had a Dream About You
Having a sister or a friend is like sitting at night in a lighted house. Those outside can watch you if they want, but you need not see them. You simply say, "Here are the perimeters of our attention. If you prowl around under the windows till the crickets go silent, we will pull the shades. If you wish us to suffer your envious curiosity, you must permit us not to notice it." Anyone with one solid human bond is that smug, and it is the smugness as much as the comfort and safety that lonely people covet and admire.
— Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping
Despite the fact that I have no regrets about how things turned out in my life, I still can't help wanting to understand my intense relationship with Leo, as well as that turbulent time between adolescence and adulthood when everything feels raw and invigorating and scary-and why those feelings are all coming back to me now.
— Emily Giffin, Love the One You're With
Ask anyone and they'll most likely say their family is crazy, and if they don't say their family is crazy, their friends are crazy. That's because everyone is crazy after taking the mask off. People are most themselves when not really trying to fit in, when either alone or around those already closest to them, and that is crazy.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
No, I don't think I could fall in love with him, handsome though he is, because I don't accept any of that huff he gives me about my great beauty and all that. I'd have to trust a man's words before I could love him. I think.
— Sherwood Smith, Court Duel
I love you, he thought, because you are honest with me and because you are willing to speak the truth to me when others might seek to curry favor instead. I love you because you are in this bed with me, not trying to conceive the much-awaited next generation of Windhams, but just holding my hand.-- Gayle Windham
— Grace Burrowes, The Heir
Marriage as a long conversation. - When marrying you should ask yourself this question: do you believe you are going to enjoy talking with this woman into your old age? Everything else in a marriage is transitory, but most of the time that you're together will be devoted to conversation.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human
The day he moved out was terrible – That evening she went through hell.His absence wasn’t a problemBut the corkscrew had gone as well.
— Wendy Cope, Serious Concerns
The old Amy, the girl of the big laugh and the easy ways, literally shed herself, a pile of skin and soul on the floor, and stepped this new, brittle, bitter Amy ... a razor-wire knot daring me to unloop her, and I was not up to the job with my thick, numb, nervous fingers. Country fingers. Flyover fingers untrained in the intricate, dangerous work of 'solving Amy'. When I'd hold up the bloody stumps, she'd sigh and turn to her secret mental notebooks on which she tallied all my deficiencies, forever noting disappointments, frailties, shortcomings.
— Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl
we are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our body, which is doomed to decay..., from the external world which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless force of destruction, and finally from our relations with other men... This last source is perhaps more painful to use than any other. (p77)
— Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents
We cannot win in team situations or in relationships by ourselves. It is like trying to pick up a pencil with only one finger...Even if that one finger is extremely strong, it will prove almost impossible to pick up that pencil unless you use your other fingers or some other part of your hand. Teamwork is a bit like using all of your fingers. Each one is unique and contributes something different, but they unite in pursuit of a common goal.
— Terry Orlick
Love tames the benumbed beast. A man is put to use regarding a woman's physical safety, but a woman is put to use regarding a man's mental safety.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
If the sound of happy children is grating on your ears, I don't think it's the children who need to be adjusted.
— Stefan Molyneux
But some relationships aren't meant to last.They are worthy only till the time the two persons involved have time for each other.They do not know eternity. They live for the present, the "now". And when distance plays it part, or life turns out to be busy, they fall apart.And may be that's why they're never termed "LOVE". They simply remain what they were - mere RELATIONSHIPS.
— Sanhita Baruah
Traveling in a third-world country is the closest thing there is to being married and raising kids. You have glorious hikes and perfect days on the beach. You go on adventures you would never try, or enjoy, alone. But you also can't get away from each other. Everything is unfamiliar. Money is tight or you get robbed. Someone gets sick or sunburned. You get bored. It is harder than you expected, but you are glad you didn't just sit home.
— Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now
It’s the people we hardly know, and not our closest friends, who will improve our lives most dramatically
— Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now
I had a dream about you last night... You turned red, then green, and then blue. You told me you were trying to fit in with the m&m's.
— Amy Sommers, I Had a Dream About You
I had a dream about you last night.. You were in the amazon rain forest yipping like a dog.
— Amy Sommers, I Had a Dream About You
I had a dream about you last night... You tried to propose with a digital ceramic heater.
— Amy Sommers, I Had a Dream About You
I had a dream about you. You were being hung. I had a sword in one hand and a stool in the other. I couldn’t decide which one to use, so I stood on the stool and threw myself on the sword. It was the least I could do to protest capital punishment.
— Bauvard, I Had a Dream About You
dealing with any man means dealing with multiple personalities.
— Rick Riordan, The Serpent's Shadow
Every advantage is temporary.
— Katerina Stoykova Klemer
Uh-uh, dude. I tried it your way with the dating and the girls and the kissing and the drama, and man, I didn't like it. Plus, my best friend is a walking cautionary tale of what happens to you when romantic relationships don't involve marriage. Like you always say, kafir, everything ends in breakup, divorce, or death. I want to narrow my misery options to divorce or death - that's all.
— John Green, An Abundance of Katherines
Is it not the great end of religion, and, in particular, the glory of Christianity, to extinguish the malignant passions; to curb the violence, to control the appetites, and to smooth the asperities of man; to make us compassionate and kind, and forgiving one to another; to make us good husbands, good fathers, good friends; and to render us active and useful in the discharge of the relative social and civil duties? 
— William Wilberforce
Don't feed your ego with my soul.
— Arzum Uzun
People don't get to our ages without having pasts. I'm more interested in the future.
— Robyn Donald, Tiger, Tiger
I decided that giving a girl a ring when you're not in a serious relationship is sort of like giving a guy a blow job when you have no real feelings for him. It makes everything feel a little cheap.It cheapens the giver and the recipient.
— Emily Giffin, Baby Proof
Wearing a condom is like eating an icecream cone with a sock on your tongue.
— Mark Gungor
Everyone disliked their partners at some time or another, she knew that. But she’d spent her hours in the dark wondering whether she’d ever liked him. Would it really have been so much worse to spend those years alone? Why did there have to be someone else in the room while she was eating, watching TV, sleeping?
— Nick Hornby, Juliet, Naked
Proclaim your pride and bitterness loudly to the world, but to me speak softly, and tell me simply that she doesn't love you.
— Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac
She seemed to think that one of the perks of marriage was that it gave you rights of comment and intrusion over single people's love lives.
— J.K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy
I had a dream about you last night. We went to the store cupboard to make out, but we ended up sharing our pain and then crying together. We wasn't prepared for this level of intimacy.
— Michael  Summers, I Had a Dream About You
Helplessness and anger make for predictable behavior: Children are certain to shove each other and pull hair, teenagers will call each other names and cry, and grown women who are sisters will say words so cruel that each syllable will take on the form of a snake, although such a snake often circles in on itself to eat its own tail once the words are said aloud.
— Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic
...you do not have too many boogeymen for me. You have just the right number.
— Rebecca Wells
I had a dream about you last night... Unfortunately, it wasn't a dream.
— Amy Sommers, I Had a Dream About You
I had a dream about you last night... Well I say dream I mean nightmare... you were a Yankee fan.
— Nicole McKay, I Had a Dream About You
I had a dream about you last night.. You kept screaming at Ted Danson to pour you a drink.
— Amy Sommers, I Had a Dream About You
When you want to share something with another person more than anything, it is one of the most difficult things to realize that you can never have it. Accepting this realization is even more difficult. Loving someone does mean saying goodbye to them in some cases, though we will fight that until the oftentimes bitter end before doing the right thing.
— Ashly Lorenzana
First of all, never buy a man a plasma TV until you're married. A lot of men once they have a plasma TV they don't need a girlfriend
— Greg Behrendt
When a man plays with your heart it is for one of two reasons: He knows he can or he is undecided.
— Shannon L. Alder
That was the day that I promised I'd never sing of love that does not exist. but darling, You are the only exception
— Hayley Williams
Lovers do things together! They rent videos, they ride Ferris wheels, they go out for pizza, they play Scrabble. They . . . they talk!''Talk?' He lifted his head and frowned, his eyes puzzled. 'We talk all the time, Raine. I've never had such talkative sex.''That's just it!' She wiggled, flailed, but couldn't budge him. 'Two minutes alone with you, and I'm flat on my back. Every single time!'A slow, knowing grin spread over his face. 'Is this your way of telling me you want to be on top?
— Shannon McKenna, Behind Closed Doors
If you do not respect your own wishes, no one else will. You will simply attract people who disrespect you as much as you do.
— Vironika Tugaleva
If I knew how a lot of my relationships would have turned out, I never would have gotten involved in them... And I would have missed out on some of the best times in my life.
— L.A. Witt, Rules of Engagement
Some people are oil and water.
— John Christopher, The Pool of Fire
Bones,” I sighed. “Know something? I’m not afraid of you, but you scareme….” His outline blurred again.“You scare me, too, Kitten,” he might have replied, but I couldn’t be sure.
— Jeaniene Frost, Halfway to the Grave
Miro, I'm so sorry. I always felt such pity for you humans because you could only think of one thing at a time and your memories were so imperfect and . . . now I realize that just getting through the day without killing somebody can be an achievement."It gets to be a habit. Most of us manage to keep our body count quite low. It's the neighborly way to live.
— Orson Scott Card, Children of the Mind
If you never left anything or anyone there would be no room for the new. Naturally, to move on is an infidelity -- to others, to the past, to old notions of oneself. Perhaps every day should contain at least one essential infidelity or necessary betrayal. It would be an optimistic, hopeful act, guaranteeing belief in the future -- a declaration that things can be not only different but better.
— Hanif Kureishi, Intimacy: das Buch zum Film von Patrice Chéreau
There is a soul-jealousy that can be as frantic as any body-jealousy.
— Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
Just because he likes the same bizzaro crap as you doesn't mean he's your soul mate.
— Rachel Hansen
A relationship needs constant attention. It’s a living thing, not just a habit. You’ve got to keep on top of it.
— Matt Dunn, Best Man
Parker: She believed, absolutely, that each person, each heart, had a counterpart—had a mate. A rightness. She’d always believed it, and understood that unshakable belief was a reason she was good at what she did.
— Nora Roberts
You can only trust your emotions as you can lie to yourself with your brain but not your heart.
— Carl White
This is where men and women are different, we can put aside petty competition for relationships - they can't. It interferes.
— Adriana Trigiani, Viola in Reel Life
How can I grieve what is still in motion?" I ask her. "Shoes are still dropping all over the place. I´m not kidding," I say. "It´s Normandy out there.
— Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce
She realized, when relationships failed to last, it was not because love was no longer present, but because people had stopped believing in themselves and in their partners.
— Christina Westover, Poisoning Sylvie
There was a time Jeff and Helen loved each other and touched each other's hands and ate breakfast in cafes together and secretly fucked in public, the way people in like do. Then came a time they made each other crazy and beat their hands on steering wheels and tore up love letters and photographs and said goodbye.
— Amy Guth, Three Fallen Women
He had known so much about her once -what she thought, how she felt, the reasons for her actions. And now he only knew that he loved her, and all the other knowledge seemed passing from him just as he needed it most.
— E.M. Forster, Where Angels Fear to Tread
When all one person do is complain, people don't want to talk or listen to them.
— Jonathan Anthony Burkett
Theres nothing more efficient than honesty and nothing more powerful than vulnerability because, vulnerability reveals everyone in your life who will abuse power immediately and almost irrevocably. Theres nothing weaker than hiding your vulnerability because, it means a refusal to stare at those who abuse power and see them for who they are which means they still have power and control over you. Nothing is stronger than vulnerability. Nothing more clarifying. Nothing is clearer than vulnerability, and if you hide who you are you are just making a tombstone of your everyday actions because you dont exist in hiding and you're letting the past rob you. Exercise the power of vulnerability. When you are vulnerable you are signaling to your system that the past is over and done! That you're no longer a victim! That you're no longer trapped in a destructive and abusive environment! vulnerability means it's over, it's done. The war is over but, if you continue to use the same defenses that you had in the past all you're telling your whole body is that the past is not over. Be vulnerable. Be honest. Be open and show your heart. That's the best way of telling your heart that the tigers are no longer in the grass. I'm telling you, just take it for a spin. Vulnerability and openness will get you what you want in your life and hiding will only get you the feeling of being prey from here until the end of your life.
— Stefan Molyneux
I had a dream about you. We couldn't decide on a sunrise. You wanted a tan, I only cared about the view. Then World War III fulfilled both our desires.
— Bauvard, I Had a Dream About You
I've decided that there isn't much difference in the way we treat our siblings and the way we treat our special someones. But at the end of it all we know our siblings have to forgive us...or they'll never be able to borrow our car.
— Emma Daley
There are so many movies like this, where you thought you were smarter than the screen but the director was smarter than you, of course he's the one, of course it was a dream, of course she's dead, of course, it's hidden right there, of course it's the truth and you in your seat have failed to notice in the dark.
— Daniel Handler, Why We Broke Up
Every configuration of people is an entirely new universe unto itself.
— Kristin Cashore, Bitterblue
No people find each other more absurd than lovers
— C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
I missed you so much," she breathed.I tilted my head back and put my hands on her shoulders. I could hardly believe this was happening. I was finally getting to touch her. To kiss her. It was all happening. "I missed you, too.
— Kieran Scott, He's So Not Worth It
You never walk alone. Even the devil is the lord of flies.
— Gilles Deleuze
It took hours to turn the clock back 30 seconds.
— Jonathan Franzen, Strong Motion
It seemed that everyone else could mate, could fit their parts together in pleasant and productive ways, but that some almost indistinguishable difference in my anatomy and psyche set me slightly, yet irrevocably, apart.
— Peter Cameron, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You
Too often in my life, love has been defined as "humiliation with occasional roses".
— Deb Caletti, The Secret Life of Prince Charming
I know you think I'm crazy. Maybe that's because I am. About life, about this moment, about you.
— Crystal Woods, Write like no one is reading
All human males were as fascinated with cars as they were with breasts.
— Anita Clenney
… she gave me a look that deftly combined tenderness with revulsion. To this day the memory of that look still visits me like a Jehovah’s Witness: uninvited and tireless.
— Steve Toltz
The fights are always the same
— Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
the important people in our lives leave imprints. they may die or go in the physical realm, but they are always there in your heart, because they helped form your heart
— Jules Renard
It happens the world over - we love ourselves more than we do the one we say we love. We all want to be Number One, we've got to be Number One or nothing! We can't see that we could make ourselves loved and needed in the Number Two, or Three, or Four spot. No sir, we've got to be Number One, and if we can't make it, we'll rip and tear at the loved one till we've ruined every smidgin of love that was ever there.
— Irene Hunt, Up a Road Slowly
The protagonist, Amanda, discusses her sex relationship with her husband, John Paul --As long as it's done with honesty and grace, John Paul doesn't mind if I go to bed with other men. Or with other girls, as is sometimes my fancy. What has marriage got to do with it? Marriage is not a synonym for monogamy any more than monogamy is a synonym for ideal love. To live lightly on the earth, lovers and families must be more flexible and relaxed. The ritual of sex releases its magic inside or outside the marital bond. I approach that ritual with as much humility as possible and perform it whenever it seems appropriate. As for John Paul and me, a strange spurt of semen is not going to wash our love away.
— Tom Robbins, Another Roadside Attraction
To save face, it's better not to ask sex from the ex, but to give everything the axe.
— Anthony Liccione
His arms wrapped around my waist from behind and he kissed my neck again, closer to the wound this time. My pulse accelerated. I wanted him to bite me; I wanted to be his.
— Joann I. Martin Sowles, Laney
I could now see her the way she actually is and not in the distorted way my mind presented her to me when I was trying to find a reason to reject her and move on
— Jack Weyland, As Always, Dave
Did you know that wherever you find fool's gold, real gold exists somewhere nearby? This also goes for relationships and friendships. Real gold is found in the heart. For every piece of fake gold that you discard, remember that true gold isn't too far.
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
As they embrace, she kisses him full on the mouth. And suddenly sticks her tongue right in. She has done this before, often. It’s one of those drunken long shots which just might, at least theoretically, once in ten thousand tries, throw a relationship right out of its orbit and send it whizzing off on another. Do women ever stop trying? No. But, because they never stop, they learn to be good losers.
— Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man
We can help pave the roads of those around us, but we can't choose their direction.
— Michelle Moran, Rebel Queen
Successful relationships are those relationships were conflicts are successfully resolved and in fact peoples intimacy, closeness, and love are enhanced through the resolution of conflicts. I have always become closer to my wife and to my friends when we have conflicts and work through them successfully because conflicts will always arise. They are an opportunity for intimacy, self-knowledge, and a greater connection.
— Stefan Molyneux
If she does not respect you, she will replace you.
— Habeeb Akande
I had a dream about you. You suggested to split the profits, so I did. I threw one half in the furnace to power the steam engine, and the other half in the air to distract our pursuers.
— Bauvard, I Had a Dream About You
Somewhere between love and hate lies confusion, misunderstanding and desperate hope.
— Shannon L. Alder
All over the world major museums have bowed to the influence of Disney and become theme parks in their own right. The past, whether Renaissance Italy or Ancient Egypt, is re-assimilated and homogenized into its most digestible form. Desperate for the new, but disappointed with anything but the familiar, we recolonize past and future. The same trend can be seen in personal relationships, in the way people are expected to package themselves, their emotions and sexuality, in attractive and instantly appealing forms.
— J.G. Ballard, The Atrocity Exhibition
Because two people in love don't make a hive mind. Neither should they want to be a hive mind, to think the same, to know the same. It's about being separate and still loving each other, being distinct from each other. One is the violin string one is the bow.
— Graham Joyce
I am replete with stamina in finding out every single fact I can about this whole affair.Yet, I think, do I want to pull that thread? Do I want to unleash the truth, unravel deceit, and kill reality as I´ve known it? It is irreparable, if I do, from the moment we met until now. It is long. If I discover too much that is false about what I thought my past was, Time will be skewed even further. I already have a poor connection with the present. Example: I have no sense of what day it is. It´s better.
— Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce
So I put up with bad behavior in the name of loving the way I thought you were supposed to love.
— Deb Caletti, The Secret Life of Prince Charming
I just want you to know that where ever life takes you, I'll always be happy for you as long as its something that makes you happy because that's all that really makes me happy. Why? I'm just listening to my heart and all it's telling me is to understand. Which in a way I can but then again I can't. I'm use to it all though because not everyone lives a fair life if you know what I mean.
— Jonathan Anthony Burkett, Friends 2 Lovers: The Unthinkable
This is what it is to love an artist: The moon is always rising above your house. The houses of your neighbors look dull and lacking in moonlight. But he is always going away from you. Inside his head there is always something more beautiful.
— Sarah Ruhl, Eurydice
They ought to find out how to vaccinate for love, like smallpox.
— Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Close cycles. Not because of pride or arrogance, but because that no longer fits your life
— Paulo Coelho
If you don't feel the same way about him, if you're just leading him on, you need to tell him that. I've seen too many nice guys get shafted because a girl can't get over some jerk.
— Nenia Campbell, Terrorscape
You know what's lame, Pudge? I really care about her. I mean, we were hopeless. Badly matched. But still. I mean, I said I loved her... I mean, it's stupid to miss someone you didn't even get along with. but I don't know, it was nice, you know, having someone you could always fight with.
— John Green, Looking for Alaska
I want to tell him that it's just a stupid car, but bits of me are scattered all over town; the graveyard, school, Cassie's room, the motel, and standing in from of the sink in my mother's kitchen. It takes too much energy to gather all the bits together, so I just sit there and watch him implode. 
— Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls
Why?" She asked in a confused whisper. "Out of all the women in the world, why did you choose this mortal?""Because fate drove me to you.
— Charlotte Featherstone, Lust
Nodding, Parker ate. “He’s an exceptional kisser.”“He really is. He . . . How do you know?” When Parker just smiled, Emma’s jaw dropped. “You? You and Jack? When? How?”“I think it’s disgusting,” Mac muttered. “Yet another best pal moving on my imaginary ex.”“Two kisses, my first year at Yale, after we ran into each other at a party and he walked me back to the dorm. It was nice. Very nice. But as exceptional a kisser as he is, it was too much like kissing my brother. And as exceptional a kisser as I am, I believe he felt it was too much like kissing his sister. And that’s how we left it. I gather that wasn’t an issue for you and Jack.
— Nora Roberts, Bed of Roses
No one had told her this would happen, that her girlishness would give way to the solid force of wifehood, motherhood. The choices available were all imperfect. If you chose to be with someone, you often wanted to be alone. If you chose to be alone, you often felt the unbearable need for another body - not necessarily for sex, but just to rub your foot, to sit across the table, to drop his things around the room in a way that was maddening but still served as a reminder that he was there.
— Meg Wolitzer, The Position
It sometimes seemed to him that for love to work, it had to be fair, that he should tell only half the joke, and she the other half. Otherwise, it would not be love, but something completely else–pity or entertainment, or stand-up comedy.
— Tao Lin, Bed
Love is not the perfect match, love is the connection between two people.
— Unarine Ramaru
It’s funny how many ways there are to hurt people. As many ways to hurt as there are species of flower. Whole bouquets of hurt.
— Joshua Gaylord, When We Were Animals
We might have coupledIn the bed-ridden monopoly of a momentOr broken flesh with one anotherAt the profane communion tableWhere wine is spill'd on promiscuous lipsWe might have given birth to a butterflyWith the daily-newsPrinted in blood on its wings
— Mina Loy, The Lost Lunar Baedeker: Poems of Mina Loy
If you have people who treat you badly in your life, they will be a human shield against people who will treat you well. If that’s not true then we should apply it to marriage and start saying to woman who are being put down or beaten, “you gotta stay with him because he needs you and he has been your husband for 20 years for heaven sakes. You just have to work to love him more and so on.” This is the advice they gave to woman like 200 fucking years ago and it was abusive advice.  I view the parent child relationship (This just not my made up perspective.) it is the least voluntary relationship. At least the woman who got married chose to get married. We don’t choose our parents. The highest standards of behavior are required for parents and no one else. There is no one else whose standards of behavior need be higher than parents and so often parents get away with the lowest possible standards of behavior with regards to their children.
— Stefan Molyneux
We believe we are seeking happiness in love, but what we are really after is familiarity. We are looking to re-create, within our adult relationships, the very feelings we knew so well in childhood and which were rarely limited to just tenderness and care. The love most of us will have tasted early on came entwined with other, more destructive dynamics: feelings of wanting to help an adult who was out of control, of being deprived of a parent’s warmth or scared of his or her anger, or of not feeling secure enough to communicate our trickier wishes.How logical, then, that we should as adults find ourselves rejecting certain candidates not because they are wrong but because they are a little too right—in the sense of seeming somehow excessively balanced, mature, understanding, and reliable—given that, in our hearts, such rightness feels foreign and unearnt. We chase after more exciting others, not in the belief that life with them will be more harmonious, but out of an unconscious sense that it will be reassuringly familiar in its patterns of frustration.
— Alain de Botton, The Course of Love
I had a dream about you last night.We moved into a cabin in the countryside.I couldn't handle the spiders.You couldn't handle my drama.I moved back to the city.
— Michael  Summers, I Had a Dream About You
I had a dream about you last night. It wasn't until after you sold me the talking car, I realized you were the world’s best ventriloquist.
— Michael  Summers, I Had a Dream About You
When introverts go to church, we crave sanctuary in every sense of the word, as we flee from the disorienting distractions of twenty-first-century life. We desire to escape from superficial relationships, trivial communications and the constant noise that pervade our world, and find rest in the probing depths of God's love.
— Adam S. McHugh, Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture
Every relationship that has hit a crossroads has asked, “What is it that you want from me?
— Shannon L. Alder
Love affairs are for emotional sprinters the pleasures of love are for the emotional marathoners. 
— Robertson Davies
How could you do that to me?" I repeat. I don´t have to itemize. He knows what I speak of.Eventually N produces three answers, in this 
— Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce
The trouble with you is that the only way you can communicate is through art. You’ve never learned to communicate your feelings to a man. You don’t even want to communicate in a relationship. You think that if you open up to love, you’ll lose your independence or your self-expression or creativity or whatever you call all that passionate, wonderful stuff that makes you feel alive inside.
— Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All
I love love. I love having a lover and being one. The insularity of passion. I love it. I love the way it blurs the distinction between everyone who isn't one's lover.
— Tom Stoppard, The Real Thing
...Love can give you the most exhilarating wonderful highs at times... ...Then there will be dives that will take all you have just to hold on... Quote on the Title Page of "Love TORN Asunder
— Elizabeth Funderbirk, Love Torn Asunder
I dunno." She sat on the bench and hugged the robe like a pillow. "I still think that Brett guy is cute.""Good luck getting him away from Bekka." Cleo gathered her silky black hair into a high pony and pink-dabbed Smith's Rosebud Salve on her lips. "She's got more grip than Crazy Glue.""More cling than Saran Wrap," Lala added."More hold than Final Net." Cleo giggled."More possession than The Exorcist," Lala managed."More clench than butt cheeks," Blue chimed in."More competition than American Idol," Frankie stuck out her chest and showed them her diva booty roll.The girls burst out laughing."Nice!" Blue lifted her purple gloved hand.Frankie slapped it without a single spark."I hate to be a downer..." Claudine shuffled back into the conversation wearing her slippers and robe. "But that girl will destroy you if she catches you with Brett.""I'm not worried," Frankie tossed her hair back. "I've seen all the teen movies, and the nice girl gets the boy in the end.
— Lisi Harrison, Monster High
Just friends, just friends. Standing there in the bookstore, watching Seth walk away, I half wondered how anyone could still use that line. But I knew why, of course. It was used because people still believed it. Or at least they wanted to.
— Richelle Mead, Succubus Blues
Because that's what unfaithfulness is, isn't it? A cancer that's always there in the back of your mind, eating away at the foundations of the relationship.
— Matt Dunn, The Ex-Boyfriend's Handbook
Somewhere underneath it all, I know he doesn't deserve to take up space in my brain.
— Susane Colasanti, Take Me There
When a clandestine couple kisses, it is much more likely that sex will immediately follow. This is because there is much more risk. Once you have kissed secretly, it is very difficult not to have sex. It would be impolite not to have sex. You have to show that you are serious about each other.
— Adam Thirlwell, Politics
Yes. THANK YOU. And say hello to Judas Iscariot.
— Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce
Unfortunately, he still hadn’t asked for my number, or a date, or my hand in marriage, and my drink was getting low.
— Kimberly Novosel, Loved
We all want relationships that are healthy and resolved, and sometimes that simply doesn't happen. But the beauty of life is that inside these disappointments are hidden the most miraculous of blessings. What we lose and what we might have been pales against what we have.
— Laura Schroff, An Invisible Thread: The True Story of an 11-Year-Old Panhandler, a Busy Sales Executive, and an Unlikely Meeting with Destiny
I didn’t answer. We were not buddies. We could not chat about the proximity of our offices, or football, or forgiveness.
— Kimberly Novosel, Loved
I had a dream about you last night. Eons ago, we created a Universe, then sat back and watched miniature versions of ourselves try to make all the same mistakes we did.
— Michael  Summers, I Had a Dream About You
There are many things that can keep you in a relationship. Fear of being alone, Fear of disrupting the arrangement of your life.A decision to settle for something that's okay. Because you don;t know if you can get any better. Or maybe there's the irrational belief that it will get better even if you know he won't change.
— David Levithan
I’ve loved him since I’ve known him, Mrs. Daniels. He just finally stopped fighting.
— Amy Lane, Sidecar
So often, we had the tendency of saying, they're the problem. No, they're not the problem. Our heart is the problem. they are just there to show me what is in my heart. They don't put those things in my heart. They don't put the wrath, the bitterness in my heart. Those things are already there. They are the vessels God uses to to release what is in my heart so that I am aware of how black my heart really is.
— Lowell Nelson
I had a dream about you last night... You replaced all the people in your life with kittens. It felt more like a prediction of the future.
— Amy Sommers, I Had a Dream About You
Men want a girl who looks like a boy. They want to protect her but she must be a survivor. And she must come...like a train...but with...elegance.
— Patrick Marber, Closer
I had a dream about you last night... you sat in a cardboard box and said you were a tree.
— Nicole McKay, I Had a Dream About You
I had a dream about you last night… it was raining and you were fishing for fire to set a sandcastle a flame.
— Nicole McKay, I Had a Dream About You
I had a dream about you last night... you were crying over spilt ink screaming "the words, the what could have been beautiful words.
— Nicole McKay, I Had a Dream About You
I had a dream about you last night.. You pretended not to be a three hole punch.
— Amy Sommers, I Had a Dream About You
I no longer have the energy for meaningless friendships, forced interactions or unnecessary conversations. If we don’t vibrate on the same frequency there’s just no reason for us to waste our time. I’d rather have no one and wait for substance than to not feel someone and fake the funk.
— Joquesse Eugenia
I am unlovable...I have tried to involve myself in other people, in relationships, and even - in my sillier moments - in love. But it doesn't work. Something in me is broken or missing and sooner or later the other person catches me Acting or one of Those Nights comes along.
— Jeff Lindsay, Darkly Dreaming Dexter
There are better people in the world, do not let the worst do the worst to you, you deserve the best in life.
— Michael Bassey Johnson
The first time someone I loved left me behind...I didn't know how my family would balance. We had been such a sturdy little end table, four solid legs. I was sure we would now be off-kilter, always unstable. Until one day I looked more closely, and realized that we had simply become a stool.
— Jodi Picoult, Lone Wolf
Love doesn't always curl your toes sometimes it takes a bite right out of your soul.
— Stanley Victor Paskavich
I want to take all our best moments, put them in a jar, and take them out like cookies and savor each one of them forever.
— Crystal Woods, Write like no one is reading
She was aware that in love even the most passionate idealism will not rid the body's surface of its terrible, basic importance.
— Milan Kundera, Laughable Loves
Because a quiet night is not the same as a silent one, a firm man is not the same as a steady one, and a bright light is not the same as a brilliant one.
— Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me
You cannot borrow half of who you are from someone else, yet people try to do it all of the time, they just call it a relationship!
— Jennifer O'Neill, The Pursuit of Happiness: 21 Spiritual Rules to Sucess
I saw my reflection in their eyes, but not the men themselves, not clearly. This preserved the idea that all intelligent and even vaguely attractive men were essentially good. Delusion detest focus and romance provides the veil.
— Suzanne Finnamore, Split: A Memoir of Divorce
Trust is not a gasoline-soaked blanket that succumbs to the matches of betrayal, never able to be used for its warmth again; it’s a tapestry that wears thin in places, but can be patched over if you have the right materials, circumstances, and patience to repair it. If you don’t, you’re always the one who feels the coldest when winter comes.
— A.J. Darkholme, Rise of the Morningstar
She would be quiet at first. Then she would say a word about something small, something she had noticed, and then another word, and another, each one flung out like a little piece of sand, one from this direction, another form behind, more and more, until his looks, his character, his soul would have eroded away . . . I was afraid that some unseen speck of truth would fly into my eye, blur what I was seeing and transform him from the divine man I thought he was into someone quite mundane, mortally wounded with tiresome habits and irritating imperfections.
— Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club
Because conflict-avoidant Emily would never “bite” or even hiss unless Greg had done something truly horrible, on some level she processes his bite to mean that she’s terribly guilty—of something, anything, who knows what?
— Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
Marriage," she said quietly, "is the most expensive ticket to nowhere
— Aryn Kyle, The God of Animals
The time to read Madame Bovary is when your romantic hopes and desires have crashed, and you will believe that your future relationships will have disappointing - even devastating - consequences.
— John Irving, In One Person
I had a dream about you last night... shortly after I woke up screaming in terror.
— Amy Sommers, I Had a Dream About You
I had a dream about you last night... you made a beard for yourself out of forty two bags of Twizzlers.
— Nicole McKay, I Had a Dream About You
I believe the world is divided in three groups: givers, takers and the few that can balance both impulses. Giving and loving is a beautiful thing. It is the currency of compassion and kindness, it is what separates good people from the rest. And without it, the world would be a bleak place. If you are a giver, it is wise to define your boundaries because takers will take what you allow them to; all givers must learn to protect that about themselves or eventually, there is nothing left to give.
— Tiffany Madison
Don’t ever stray from yourself, in order to be close to someone that doesn’t have the courtesy to remind you of your worth, or the integrity of a gentleman to walk you home.
— Shannon L. Alder
The power of patriarchy has been to make maleness feared and to make men feel that it is better to be feared that to be loved. Whether they can confess this or not, men know that just is not true.
— bell hooks