LOVE QUOTES XXXVII

quotations about love

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.

ROLAND BARTHES

A Lover's Discourse: Fragments


Being in love is an elaborate state of anticipation for the continual exchanging of certain kinds of gifts. The gifts can range from a glance to the offering of the entire self. But the gifts must be gifts: they cannot be claimed. One has no rights as a lover--except the right to anticipate what the other wishes to give.

JOHN BERGER

G. John Berger

Tags: John Berger


It must be sad to outlive aught we love.

GEORGE ELIOT

The Spanish Gypsy


A man is only as good as what he loves.

SAUL BELLOW

Seize the Day

Tags: Saul Bellow


Love is a kind of warfare.

OVID

The Art of Love

Tags: Ovid


Falling in Love, as modern biology teaches us to believe, is nothing more than the latest, highest, and most involved exemplification, in the human race, of that almost universal selective process which Mr. Darwin has enabled us to recognise throughout the whole long series of the animal kingdom. The butterfly that circles and eddies in his aerial dance around his observant mate is endeavouring to charm her by the delicacy of his colouring, and to overcome her coyness by the display of his skill. The peacock that struts about in imperial pride under the eyes of his attentive hens, is really contributing to the future beauty and strength of his race by collecting to himself a harem through whom he hands down to posterity the valuable qualities which have gained the admiration of his mates in his own person. Mr. Wallace has shown that to be beautiful is to be efficient; and sexual selection is thus, as it were, a mere lateral form of natural selection--a survival of the fittest in the guise of mutual attractiveness and mutual adaptability, producing on the average a maximum of the best properties of the race in the resulting offspring. I need not dwell here upon this aspect of the case, because it is one with which, since the publication of the 'Descent of Man,' all the world has been sufficiently familiar.

GRANT ALLEN

"Falling in Love", Falling in Love and Other Essays


As your lover describes you, so you are.

JEANETTE WINTERSON

Sexing the Cherry

Tags: Jeanette Winterson


My Love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis, for object, strange and high;
It was begotten by Despair,
Upon Impossibility.

ANDREW MARVELL

The Definition of Love

Tags: Andrew Marvell


Love is what you've been through with somebody.

JAMES THURBER

Life Magazine, Mar. 14, 1960

Tags: James Thurber


He who loveth, knoweth the inner sun; he see'th Life's blaze.

ELISE PUMPELLY CABOT

"Arizona"

Tags: Elise Pumpelly Cabot


If it is your time, love will track you down like a cruise missile.

LYNDA BARRY

attributed, The Surrendered Single


Love not only occupies the higher lobes of the brain, but crowds out the lower to make room for its expansion.

HORACE MANN

Thoughts


Love differs from all the other contagious diseases: the last time a man is exposed to it, he takes it most readily, and has it the worst!

BRET HARTE

"Two Men of Sandy Bar"

Tags: Bret Harte


You can't make me love you.

NEIL GAIMAN

Coraline

Neil Gaiman (born 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, films, and nonfiction. He is best known for the comic book series The Sandman and novels such as American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book.

Tags: Neil Gaiman


The Maker has linked together the whole race of man with this chain of love. I like to think that there is no man but has had kindly feelings for some other, and he for his neighbour, untiwl we bind together the whole family of Adam. Nor does it end here. It joins heaven and earth together. For my friend or my child of past days is still my friend or my child to me here, or in the home prepared for us by the Father of all. If identity survives the grave, as our faith tells us, is it not a consolation to think that there may be one or two souls among the purified and just, whose affection watches us invisible, and follows the poor sinner on earth?

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

Cornhill to Cairo


One of the nice things about having a lover, it makes you think about everything anew. The rest of your life becomes a kind of movie, flat and even rather funny.

JOHN UPDIKE

Rabbit Redux

Tags: John Updike


Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes one feel as you might when a drowning man holds unto you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.

ANAIS NIN

attributed, French Writers of the Past

Anaïs Nin (February 21, 1903 - January 14, 1977) was a French-Cuban American diarist, essayist, novelist and writer of short stories and erotica. Nin's most studied works are her diaries or journals, which detail her marriages to Hugh Parker Guiler and Rupert Pole, in addition to her numerous affairs, including those with psychoanalyst Otto Rank and writer Henry Miller.

Tags: Anais Nin


The belief that love is a finite essence that will eventually run out holds a certain logic for me even now, even if I am supposed to know better.

SUSANNA MOORE

The Big Girls

Tags: Susanna Moore


If they substituted the word "Lust" for "Love" in the popular songs it would come nearer the truth.

SYLVIA PLATH

The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Tags: Sylvia Plath


I fell in love once, if love be that cruelty which takes us straight to the gates of Paradise only to remind us they are closed for ever.

JEANETTE WINTERSON

Sexing the Cherry