LOVE QUOTES VIII

quotations about love

love quote

When love is reached through suffering ... it has a power it can never gain through innocence.

ANNE RICE

Memnoch the Devil

Tags: Anne Rice


Love had a thousand shapes.

VIRGINIA WOOLF

To the Lighthouse


Unconditional love. That's what he wants to give her and what he wants from her. People should give without wanting anything in return. All other giving is selfish. But he is being selfish a little, isn't he, by wanting her to love him in return? He hopes that she loves him in return. Is it possible for a person to love without wanting love back? Is anything so pure? Or is love, by its nature, a reciprocity, like oceans and clouds, an evaporating of seawater and a replenishing of rain?

ALAN LIGHTMAN

Reunion

Tags: Alan Lightman


Love is the kiss
in the quiet nest
while the leaves are trembling,
mirrored in the water.

FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA

The Butterfly's Evil Spell

Tags: Federico García Lorca


Among the blessings of love there is hardly one more exquisite than the sense that in uniting the beloved life to ours we can watch over its happiness, bring comfort where hardship was, and over memories of privation and suffering open the sweetest fountains of joy.

GEORGE ELIOT

Daniel Deronda

Tags: George Eliot


Love means not ever having to say you're sorry.

ERICH SEGAL

Love Story

Tags: Erich Segal


Love will sacrifice more to others than friendship, but then it exacts more from them.

FULKE GREVILLE

Maxims, Characters, and Reflections


Love seems to survive life, and to reach beyond it. I think we take it with us past the grave. Do we not still give it to those who have left us? May we not hope that they feel it for us, and that we shall leave it here in one or two fond bosoms, when we also are gone?

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

The Virginians


Love is as bitter as the dregs of sin,
As sweet as clover-honey in its cell;
Love is the password whereby souls get in
To Heaven--the gate that leads, sometimes, to Hell.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

"What Love Is"


I say I'm in love with her. What does that mean? It means I review my future and my past in the light of this feeling. It is though I wrote in a foreign language that I am suddenly able to read. Wordlessly, she explains me to myself. Like genius, she is ignorant of what she does.

JEANETTE WINTERSON

The Passion


What is love? There is nothing in the world, neither man nor Devil nor any thing, that I hold as suspect as love, for it penetrates the soul more than any other thing. Nothing exists that so fills and binds the heart as love does. Therefore, unless you have those weapons that subdue it, the soul plunges through love into an immense abyss.

UMBERTO ECO

The Name of the Rose


Love is the garden of the young.

HERBERT KRETZMER

"A Heart Full of Love (Reprise)", Les Miserables


Surely only true love could justify my lack of taste.

MARGARET ATWOOD

Lady Oracle

Margaret Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Her works encompass a variety of themes including gender and identity, religion and myth, the power of language, climate change, and "power politics".

Tags: Margaret Atwood


It's easier to avoid the snares of love than to escape once you are in that net.

LUCRETIUS

De Rerum Natura

Tags: Lucretius


Strange
indeed how love in other
ways so particular
will pick a corner
in that charnel-house
tidy it and coil up there, perhaps
even fall asleep--her face
turned to the wall!

CHINUA ACHEBE

Attento, Soul Brother!

Tags: Chinua Achebe


It's logical that everyone wants to be in love. Then, for a while, life isn't taken up with the tedium of thinking everything through, talking things through. It's nice to be able to notice small objects or small moments, to point them out and to have someone eager to pretend that there's more to them than it seems.

ANN BEATTIE

"Moving Water", The New Yorker Stories

Tags: Ann Beattie


We don't believe in rheumatism and true love until after the first attack.

MARIE VON EBNER-ESCHENBACH

Aphorisms

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (September 13, 1830 - March 12, 1916) was an Austrian writer noted for her excellent psychological novels. She portrayed life among both the poor and the aristocratic.


Love can change a person the way a parent can change a baby -- awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess.

DANIEL HANDLER

as Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

Tags: Daniel Handler


Without warning
as a whirlwind
swoops on an oak
Love shakes my heart

SAPPHO

Without Warning

Sappho (c. 630 - c. 570 BC) was a Greek poet from the island of Lesbos. Although most of her poetry is now lost, she was regarded in ancient times as one of the greatest lyric poets and given names such as the "Tenth Muse" and "The Poetess," just as Homer was called "the Poet."


True love always brings joy to ourselves and to the one we love. If our love does not bring joy to both of us, it is not true love.

THICH NHAT HANH

Teachings on Love