After All This Time Love Quotes & Sayings

I know that you spent years pouring yourself into another person who you thought was going to love you forever; and when he was faced with the realities of the world, he abandoned you." I froze, taking in his words. "I'm not him, America. I have no intentions of giving up on you."
I shook my head. "You can't see it, Maxon. He might have let me down, but at least I knew him. After all this time, I still feel like there's a gap between us. The Selection has forced you to hand over your affection in slices. I'll never really have all of you. None of us will. — Kiera Cass

Ella Jane Mason, I'm going to kiss you before this night is over. If you don't want me to, you should say so. Soon." His eyes looked like they were memorizing her mouth.
"If you won't kiss me, after all that, then I'm going to be seriously disappointed."
"Well we can't have that," Hayden said softly just before he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers.
Fireworks went off around them as they both fell headfirst in love for the first time ever. — C. Quinn

On the flight over to Chicago, I thought of a story Mom had once told me from her days as a pediatric nurse.
"There was this little boy I was taking care of," she said "and he was terminally ill,and we all knew it,but he kept hanging on and hanging on. He wouldn't die, it was so sad.
And his parents were always there with him,giving him so much love and support,but he was in so much pain,and it really was,time for him to go.
So finally some of us nurses took his father aside and we told him, 'You have to tell your son it's okay for him to go. You have to give him permission.' And so the father took his son in his arms and he sat with him in a chair and held on to him and told him over and over, that it was okay for him to go,and,well,after a few moments,his son died. — Anthony Rapp

A Farewell For a while I shall still be leaving, Looking back at you as you slip away Into the magic islands of the mind. But for a while now all alive, believing That in a single poignant hour We did say all that we could ever say In a great flowing out of radiant power. It was like seeing and then going blind. After a while we shall be cut in two Between real islands where you live And a far shore where I'll no longer keep The haunting image of your eyes, and you, As pupils widen, widen to deep black And I am able neither to love or grieve Between fulfillment and heartbreak. The time will come when I can go to sleep. But for a while still, centered at last, Contemplate a brief amazing union, Then watch you leave and then let you go. I must not go back to the murderous past Nor force a passage through to some safe landing, But float upon this moment of communion Entranced, astonished by pure understanding - Passionate love dissolved like summer snow. — May Sarton

Next time we will look at this from a much more basic point of view and one antedating all zoology, which, glimpsed only a little after my twentieth year, made write in those days that what is most valuable in man is his eternal and almost divine discontent, a discontent which is a kind of love without a beloved, and like an ache which we feel in members of our body that we do not have. Man is the only being that misses he has never had. And the whole of what we miss, without ever having had it, is never what we call happiness. From this one could start a meditation on happiness, an analysis of that strange condition which makes man the only being who is unhappy for the very reason that he needs to be happy. That is, because he needs to be what he is not. — Jose Ortega Y Gasset

God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseeing - or should we say "seeing"? there are no tenses in God - the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated incipient suffocation as the body droops, the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath's sake, hitched up. If I may dare the biological image, God is a "host" who deliberately creates His own parasites; causes us to be that we may exploit and "take advantage of" Him. Herein is love. This is the diagram of Love Himself, the inventor of all loves. — C.S. Lewis

A smile tilts half his mouth. "Are you checking me out, Annabel Lee?"
After all this time, I shouldn't, but I blush.
Tegan walks over to me. "You can look all you want, ya know? Look or don't look. It's all up to you, but I can say, if the situation were reversed, I'd definitely want to explore every part of you. — Nyrae Dawn

We may not know what each day has in store for us. We could be gone tomorrow. Any minute could truly be our goodbye. But we do have this moment. This time. Today. Right now. It takes way more effort to shell out hate then it does to allow love to flow freely in our lives. After all, it's what we were born to do. — Grace Gealey

For Mersault, nothing mattered in those days. And the first time Marthe went limp in his arms and her features blurred as they came closer - the lips that had been as motionless as painted flowers now quivering and extended - Mersault saw in her not the future but all the force of his desire focused upon her and and satisfied by this appearance, this image. The lips she offered him seemed a message from a world without passion and swollen with desire, where his heart would find satisfaction. And this seemed a miracle to him. His heard pounded with an emotion he almost took for love. And when he felt the ripe and resilient flesh under his teeth, it was as though he bit into a kind of fierce liberty, after caressing her a long time with his own lips. She became his mistress that same day. — Albert Camus

Yes", Kumiko said, seriously. "Exactly that. The extraordinary happens all the time. So much, we can't take it. Life and happiness and heartache and love. If we couldn't put it in story - "
"And explain it -"
"No!" she said, suddenly sharp. "Not explain. Stories do not explain. They seem to, but all they provide is a starting point. The story never ends at the end. There is always after. And even within itself, even by saying that this version is the right one, it suggests other versions, versions that exist in parallel. No, story is not an explanation, it is a net, a net through which the truth flows. The net catches some of the truth, but not all, never all, only enough so that we can live with the extraordinary without it killing us." She sagged a little, as if exhausted by this speech. "As it surely, surely would. — Patrick Ness

So that's it. I've told you everything I know. Think clearly and think for yourself. Learn to use language to express those thoughts. Love somebody with all your heart. And with everyone, whether you love them or not, find out if you can be helpful. But really, it's even simpler than that. After all this time, and all these talks in public and in private, I think I get it now. If I were taking my friend Arnold's suggestion and spoke from my deathbed, I think I know what I'd say. I see now that I had my meaning all along, I just had to notice it. The meaning of life ... is life. Not noticing life is what's meaningless, even down to the last second. — Alan Alda

It is of immense importance, that first and foremost, people identify themselves as human beings, rather than as a believer in a spiritual belief system. Any spiritual belief system. There is such a preoccupation with where a person will be after he/she dies, that people keep on forgetting we are all here right now - on this planet! Okay, so you are on your way to Heaven, of course, whilst many others who do not believe as you do are on their way to hell, of course - but those are not yet facts! The fact that we do have, though, is the fact that we are all here right now, on this Earth, living this life, breathing this air, and it's about time we identify ourselves with the reality in front of us: that we are human beings and we all cry, laugh, love and hurt. — C. JoyBell C.

How would it be.. if all my hate disappeared like my youth, if after all this time his very hatred of me turned out to be something gentle, some kind of love. — Louise Wareham Leonard

In a perfect Friendship this Appreciative love is, I think, often so great and so firmly based that each member of the circle feels, in his secret heart, humbled before the rest. Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters. He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company. Especially when the whole group is together; each bringing out all that is best, wisest, or funniest in all the others. Those are the golden sessions; when four or five of us after a hard day's walk have come to our inn; when our slippers are on, our feet spread out toward the blaze and our drinks are at our elbows; when the whole world, and something beyond the world, opens itself to our minds as we talk; and no one has any claim on or any responsibility for another, but all are freemen and equals as if we had first met an hour ago, while at the same time an Affection mellowed by the years enfolds us. Life - natural life - has no better gift to give. Who could have deserved it? — C.S. Lewis

Once upon a time, [ ... ]. There was a world that was perfectly made and full of birds and striped creatures and lovely things like honey lilies and star tenzing and weasels
[ ... ] And this world already had light and shadow, so it didn't need any rouge stars to come and save it, and it had no use for bleeding suns or weeping moons, either, and most important, it had never known war, which is a terrible and wasteful thing that no world needs. It had earth and water, air and fire, all four elements, but it was missing the last element. Love.
[ ... ]
And so this paradise was like a jewel box without a jewel. There it lay, day after day of rose-colored dawns and creature sounds and strange perfumes, and waited for lovers to find it and fill it with their happiness. The end.
[ ... ]
The story is unfinished. The world is still waiting. — Laini Taylor

Why didn't you tell me?" he asked her after a small eternity.
"I didn't
I didn't feel that way
until
so many things have happened ... " Kaitlyn faltered. Of all things, she wanted to make Rob all right. Although now she saw that her love for him must have been changing for a long time, gradually, she didn't know how to explain that. "It's probaly just
I'll get over it. In a little while ... "
"Not that, you won't," Rob said. "Neither of you. I mean, I sure hope you don't." He sounded as incoherent as Kaitlyn felt, and he kept swallowing. But he went on doggedly, "Kait, I love you. You know I do. But this isn't something I can compete with." He stepped back. "I'm not blind. You two belong together. — L.J.Smith

A few years have gone and come around when we were sittin' at our favorite spot in town and you looked at me, got down on one knee. Take me back to the time when we walked down the aisle; the whole town came and our mammas cried. And you said "I do.", and I did, too. Take me home where we met so many years before; we'll rock our babies on the very front porch. After all this time, you and I. And I'll be eighty-seven you'll be eighty-nine, I'll still look at you like the stars that shine. In the sky. Oh, my my my. — Taylor Swift

I thought we were a real love relationship. I did. I was very invested in love, but it was just this long long sex thing that could end at any moment because after all, it's just about getting off. Almost all the time, you tell yourself you're loving somebody when you're just using them. This only looks like love. — Chuck Palahniuk

Next time I walk away," she whispered into his skin, "come with me." She let her gaze drift up to his throat, his jaw, his lips. "When this is all over, when Osaron is gone and we've saved the world again, and everyone else gets their happily ever after, come with me."
"Lila," he said, and there was so much sadness in his voice, she suddenly realized she didn't want to hear his answer, didn't want to think of all the ways their story could end, of the chance that none of them would make it out alive, intact. She didn't want to think beyond this boat, this moment, so she kissed him, deeply, and whatever he was going to say, it died on his lips as they met hers. — V.E Schwab

Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears.
"After all this time?"
"Always," said Snape. — J.K. Rowling

Arch glared at him. I've spent hundreds of years watching you mope around because you thought you lost your soul mates. You wouldn't recognize a soul mate if she walked up to you and hit you in your face. Even after all this time, you still haven't figured it out. — Rose Wynters

There's still this thing that happens after you break up with
someone. It barely takes any time to work. All you have to do
is continue with your life, and then when you find yourself in a
room with her again it's as if you're a different person. Maybe
your posture is a little more confident. Maybe your laughter is
louder. You're wearing perfume she's never smelled before and
you have a new way of pinning back your hair. You don't even
have to say anything because your presence alone is enough to
say Look at who I am without you. — Nina LaCour

The farmer after sacrificing pleasure, taste, freedom, thought, love, to his work, turns out often a bankrupt, like the merchant.This result might well seem astounding. All this drudgery, from cockcrowing to starlight, for all these years, to end in mortgages and the auctioneer's flag, and removing from bad to worse. It is time to have the thing looked into, and with a sifting criticism ascertained who is the fool. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I was twelve I was obsessed. Everything was sex. Latin was sex. The dictionary fell open at 'meretrix', a harlot. You could feel the mystery coming off the word like musk. 'Meretrix'! This was none of your mensa-a-table, this was a flash from a forbidden planet, and it was everywhere. History was sex, French was sex, art was sex, the Bible, poetry, penfriends, games, music, everything was sex except biology which was obviously sex but not really sex, not the one which was secret and ecstatic and wicked and a sacrament and all the things it was supposed to be but couldn't be at one and the same time - I got that in the boiler room and it turned out to be biology after all. — Tom Stoppard

We will martyr ourselves, suffering under the weight of a non-reciprocal relationship until some part of us bursts in protest. Suddenly, we lose our mind, and allowing ourselves to heap all manner of nastiness, name calling, patronizing, death threats on the "deserving" jerk who has it coming after all we do for him/her! As the final insult rings across the room and we regain consciousness, we are horrified by what has come out of our mouth. After all, we LOVE these people, and we quickly move into anxious terror that this time we have gone too far . . . this time we crossed the line and they will leave us. So, we hunker back down and the martyrdom begins again. It's a terrible cycle. — Mary Crocker Cook

After all this time searching, i finally found what i was looking for; me. — Nikki Rowe

I hid this one in the hopes that you would find it long after I'm gone. I hope you find this months from now, when I'm still out there, on the road, away from you. I can't imagine what the time apart has done to us. I'm hoping we're closer.
I'm hoping we're more in love than ever. I'm hoping that when I come back, you'll move in with me. In all honesty, I'm hoping that when I come back you'll agree to marry me someday. Because that's what I want, what I dream about.
You, mine, for the rest of my life. I hope you feel the same ... because I don't know what I would do without you. I love you so much. But, if for some reason we're not closer, if something has gotten between us, please, I'm begging you ... don't give up on me. Stay. Stay with me. Work it out with me. Just don't leave me ... please.
I love you, always, Kellan — S.C. Stephens

I don't know how to say it - after all this time, I'm not even sure that I can - but I have to break her last rule, because if she knows nothing else, I need her to know this one thing.
'I love you, Sunshine,' I tell her, before I lose my nerve. 'And I don't give a shit whether you want me to or not. — Katja Millay

In retrospect, I'm embarrassed by how little effort on his part it took for me to come back or stay. I was so desperate for him to love me, to want me, to fight for me that I was literally grateful for any mere scrap of effort. I'd made so many excuses for his inability to treat me well that even the smallest gesture was amplified in my head. After years of this, I finally got my head out of my ass and realized that aside from feeling insecure and fragile about the state of my relationship all the time, we also wanted entirely different things out of life! — Greg Behrendt

One of the things I love about books is being able to define and condense certain portions of a character's life into chapters. It's intriguing, because you can't do this with real life. You can't just end a chapter, then skip the things you don't want to live through, only to open it up to a chapter that better suits your mood. Life can't be divided into chapters ... only minutes. The events of your life are all crammed together one minute right after the other without any time lapses or blank pages or chapter breaks because no matter what happens life just keeps going and moving forward and words keep flowing and truths keep spewing whether you like it or not and life never lets you pause and just catch your fucking breath.
I need one of those chapter breaks. I just want to catch my breath, but I have no idea how. — Colleen Hoover

After all this time?"
"Always... — J.K. Rowling

I am almost always, when I'm at home in the evening after work, in a silk bathrobe I got from India. Like, I never take off this bathrobe. I have a series of Indian silk bathrobes that I love, and that's what I rock all the time. — Ivanka Trump

Pres,
I know you're going to say this is dumb, and I know you won't understand. Which is why I asked Bee and Ryan for help. Don't get me wrong, I like fighting with you, but there are some things you just can't argue. This is one, and I hope you'll come to accept that.
I have to leave Pine Grove. I have to leave Alabama, and I have to leave you. After tonight, that's all completely clear to me. This whole situation is effed up ... and it's clear to me now that the only way to un-eff it up ... is to take myself out of the equation. Without me, you, Bee, and Ryan can just be you, Bee, and Ryan. Not Paladins or Mages. People. With your own lives.
It's like you said at that time at Cotillion practice, you want to be a good woman who chooses the right thing for everybody. Well, so do I. (Minus the woman part, obviously.)
Have a good life, Pres. I love you. Always.
D — Rachel Hawkins

Our lives," I whisper. "I like the sound of that. I never thought that my life could be like this. So safe and warm. All my life I've been looking for that feeling. I bought house after house but I never found it."
He lifts his hand tangling his long fingers in my hair, his expression so tender and open and warm. "Sweetheart that's love that you're describing, not a property portfolio."
I smile and touch his face. "Then I got it wrong all this time because my home is you. I should have just looked for you. — Lily Morton

It wasn't always like this. There was a time when I imagined my life could happen in another way. It's true that early on I became used to the long hours I spent alone. I discovered that I did not need people as others did. After writing all day it took an effort to make conversation, like wading through cement, and often I simply chose not to make it, eating at a restaurant with a book or going for long walks alone instead, unwinding the solitude of the day through the city. But loneliness, true loneliness, is impossible to accustom oneself to, and while I was still young I thought of my situation as somehow temporary, and did not stop hoping and imagining that I would meet someone and fall in love ... Yes, there was a time before I closed myself off to others. — Nicole Krauss

The good thing is in my case I'm all about love and communications, so there was no hard feelings, it was like ok we reached the end of this season and I wish you well and it's time to move on. As a pop song it's definitely open to many different interpretations, I received a call from a cousin saying that it helped her heal after an abusive relationship and another friend said it represented her of a summer fling. We tried to write carefully so that it can be relatable to cover a wide audience. — Alyson Stoner

And now, she felt the presence of Grandmother Deal, as always--that same unexplainable presence of the woman who had mothered them all, whose love for her children and her children's children was so deep that after all the years it still seemed a tangible thing, delicate and rare, like the faint subtle odor of a fine perfume.

Could such things be, she wondered vaguely...? Could the loved dead come back? At a time like this, was the memory of them so keen to one sensitive like herself, that they only seemed to return and mingle with those to whom they had been devoted? Or was there in some way unknown to humans, a definite magical blending of these imperishable spirits with the mortal spirits of those they had so deeply loved? — Bess Streeter Aldrich

And you're right, I do love you Eden. I will follow you into eternity, or until after this weekend when we all die gruesome, painful deaths ... But with every breath I have left, I will use it to love you. Because, Eden, I want this ... You; I want you more than life, more than anything. There was a time when I didn't think I was strong enough to face you again, or what is between us. I was too afraid of the heartache, of being shattered again. But now, it doesn't matter, nothing matters except you. I will take an eternity of hardship, of war or fighting my father, or anything, just to hold your love again. You are everything to me, my sun, my moon, the air I breathe. Nothing exists accept you. I love you. — Rachel Higginson

I've been playing in the field of life on my own for a while now and it's fair to say I have gained myself along the way, I gotta admit though, after all this time I am damn well excited to fall insanely inLove with someone who knows how to take my breath away. — Nikki Rowe

He was weary of himself, of cold ideas and brain dreams. Life a poem? Not when you went about forever poetizing about your own life instead of living it. How innocuous it all was, and empty, empty, empty! This chasing after yourself, craftily observing your own tracks
in a circle, of course.
This sham diving into the stream of life while all the time you sat angling after yourself, fishing yourself up in one curious disguise or another! If he could only be overwhelmed by something
life, love, passion
so that he could no longer shape it into poems, but had to let it shape him! — Jens Peter Jacobsen

And after all this time that you still owe, you're still a good-for nothing I don't know. — Gerard Way

With thee conversing I forget all time,
All seasons and their change, all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glistering with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful evening mild, then silent night
With this her solemn bird and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heav'n, her starry train:
But neither breath of morn when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun
On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glistring with dew, nor fragrance after showers,
Nor grateful evening mild, nor silent night
With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon,
Or glittering starlight without thee is sweet. — John Milton

Andrew closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in the memories of that night as the rest of the world moved on around him. He realized that even after all this time he hadn't forgotten the smile she seemed to have patented, the light blue tank top she wore so well, or the way she had laughed when he accidentally spilled an entire can of Mountain Dew on the carpet she'd spent hours steam cleaning. And although he hadn't kissed Cooper McKay that night, or even held her hand, he could still remember the feeling of finding out that love at first sight did truly exist. — Joey Jones

New York always feels more like my hometown than the places where I actually grew up (which weren't far from New York), perhaps because I did my artistic "growing up" while working in this crazy, wonderful city back in my twenties. Although I love the quieter, slower, nature-rich life I live now in the sheep-dotted hills of Devon, there are ways in which I still feel more truly myself here in New York, more than anywhere else. Even after all this time in the desert and on Dartmoor. Strange, isn't it? — Terri Windling

This is my game within our game - to try to come up with the scenario in which it would work out better. Maybe if I met him now. Maybe if I met him in college. After college. Once he's comfortable with who he is. But every time I do this, I feel awful. Because I'm sacrificing our history. I don't love him for who he is now. I wouldn't love him for who he is two years from now. I love him for all the hims he's already been with me. I guess that's the contradiction. I want a fresh start. I would fight for that fresh start. But I also want it to be a continuation. — David Levithan

I looked at her, with her hair spilled out on the pillows and the warmth of her body warming mine. And I thought, god-dang, if this ain't a heck of a way to be in bed with a pretty woman. The two of you arguing about murder, and threatening each other, when you're supposed to be in love and you could be doing something pretty nice. And then I thought, well, maybe it ain't so strange after all. Maybe it's like this with most people, everyone doing pretty much the same thing except in a different way. And all the time they're holding heaven in their hands. — Jim Thompson

Months after my wrists ripping, a talk therapist referred to the act as self-hatred. Until then nobody had said this to me. Did everyone presume that I already knew so? People say it all the time. It's safer to draw this conclusion. Throw in cowardice and you have an insulated public. I was not enraged at all. I was panic stricken. How could I hate myself for wanting to stop such physical sickness and terror? Mine was an act of caretaking, compassion, love. You cannot share this insight with therapists because they think such encourages recurrence. Have you ever stopped diarrhea with a prayer? If you have to go, you go. If you have to die, you die. — Brian Spellman

Give me love like her
'Cause lately I've been waking up alone
Paint splattered teardrops on my shirt
Told you I'd let you go
And that I'll fight my corner
Maybe tonight I'll call you
After my blood turns into alcohol
No I just wanna hold you
Give a little time to me or burn this out
We'll play hide and seek to turn this around
All I want is the taste that your lips allow
My, my, my, my oh give me love — Ed Sheeran

Of all the Fairy strangeness she had known, this seemed suddenly both the strangest and least strange of all. How she would have liked to be looked after like that, cared for and watched over. And yet at the same time, she understood the Whelk, and wished she could grow big enough to hold on to everyone she loved at once. To keep them safe and with her always and know their secret needs well enough to answer them. — Catherynne M Valente

Over the years I'd lodged him in the permanent past, my pluperfect lover, put him on ice, stuffed him with memories and mothballs like a hunted ornament confabulating with the ghost of all my evenings. I'd dust him off from time to time and then put him back on the mantelpiece. He no longer belonged to earth or to life. All I was likely to discover at this point wasn't just how distant were the paths we'd taken, it was the measure of loss that was going to strike me
a loss I didn't mind thinking about in abstract terms but which would hurt when stared at in the face, the way nostalgia hurts long after we've stopped thinking of things we lost and may never have cared for. — Andre Aciman

You need a place just a click over middle range. Don't want to go all-out first time, but you don't want to run on the cheap either. You want atmosphere, but not stuffy. A nice established place."
"Bob, you're going to give me an ulcer."
"This is all ammunition, Cart. All ammo. You want to be able to order a nice bottle of wine. Oh, and after dinner, if she says how she doesn't want dessert, you suggest she pick one and you'll split it. Women love that. Sharing dessert's sexy. Do not go on and on about your job over dinner. Certain death. Get her to talk about hers, and what she likes to do. Then - "
"Should I be writing this down? — Nora Roberts

He pulled back, but only enough to lock his eyes onto mine as he held my face in his hands. "It will always be you, Cassandra," he whispered against my lips. Then he kissed me again, much softer this time, as if gently transferring every ounce of love he had for me onto my lips. I didn't need any words, this was all I ever needed to know that he loved me.
Everything around me faded. All my worries, all my fears disappeared when he touched me. We weren't stuck in this Hell, we weren't even in its realm. We were in our own world, no one around to save, or to slay. God, if only we could stay here. I didn't want to face reality, not when I had him here with me now, not after thinking I'd lost him. — L.J. Kentowski

Enid had sent Rose a card with the words "I'm sorry" on it. She hadn't known what else to say because at that point she wasn't sure James knew anything about Toby Halliday. But now she wishes that she had said something else. Now that she's in love again herself - a complete surprise really, after all this time, and with someone she never expected to be in love with - Enid would tell Rose that she understands love is never the same. You can love different people over the course of a lifetime, but you won't love any two of them the same way, and quite frankly, you will love some of them more than others. A great deal more. If Toby was that to Rose - if he was the one she loved the most - then Enid would have said to her, "You will continue. But you will not recover. Don't expect that. — Helen Humphreys

What I'm trying to tell you, Griffin King, is that I don't want to live in a world that doesn't have you in it." She drew a deep breath and summoned all her courage. "I love you." Time seemed to stop. He just stared up at her. A swath of her hair fell over her shoulder onto his chest and he didn't even blink. "Griffin? Did you hear me?" "I did," he answered without a change in expression. "I'm just waiting to see if maybe I died after all, because this certainly feels like heaven. — Kady Cross

When I came to this city, I would have agreed with anyone who said there was little mystery left in the world. But in you, madam, first in your image, then in your living self, I saw the allure of something far away and as secret as the stars. As I reached towards this unknown, I began to feel like a man who has ridden through a vast desert, never knowing anything but the sand around him and the dry road under him, then comes upon the mirage of a garden and a city, and finds that the mirage is real, and that it is bigger than the desert; that the desert was, after all his walking, only a small part of the mirage"
"Then you felt love, which is the state of feeling desire and the fulfillment of desire at the same time," she said. — K.J. Bishop

We're totally different people from when we first met, but I still love her and she loves me, after all this time.

And this weekend I'm going to meet her in person. — Hannah Moskowitz

It is strange,' pursued he, 'that while I love Rosomond Oliver so wildly-with all the intensity, indeed, of a first passion, the object of which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, and fascinating
I experience at the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness, that she would not make me a good wife; that she is not the partner suited to me; that I should discover this within a year after marriage; and that to twelve months' rapture would succeed a lifetime of regret. This I know. — Charlotte Bronte

What's been coming to Becca, since all this began, is this: real isn't what they try to tell you. Time isn't. Grown-ups hammer down all these markers, bells schedules coffee-breaks, to stake down time so you'll start believing it's something small and mean, something that scrapes flake after flake off of everything you love till there's nothing left; to stake you down so you won't lift off and fly away, somersaulting through whirlpools of months, skimming through eddies of glittering seconds, pouring handfuls of hours over your upturned face. — Tana French

When I first saw you, I saw love
And the first time you touched me, I felt love
And after all this time,
You're still the one I love. — Shania Twain

A man in his early prime contemplates on life, shattered by the distortions of society he gazes ahead in time. There were vows of happiness and fairy tale beginnings. Now there is nothing of that sort; now there is nothing that started the tales so bright. It's after all this while that he understands why fairy tales begin with 'once upon a time'... — Adhish Mazumder

This time, I sat next to a pixie girl called Takara, who had pinkish hair and wore a bright pink dress to match. She was the first forest-dweller I had seen wearing jewellery: she was wearing a necklace and bracelet of finely worked crystal beads. When she noticed my interest, she removed her bracelet and held it out to me.
"Sophiel, I would be so pleased if you would wear this!"
I was surprised by this kind and very selfless gesture; after all, I had not been admiring her jewels with any intention of asking her to part with them!
"You're very kind, Takara, but I was merely admiring your handiwork!" I said, trying politely to refuse her gift. "Mitsuko told me that you make your jewellery yourself. You're very talented, they're really lovely pieces, but I wouldn't want to take them away from you. It's you that makes these jewels really beautiful! — A.O. Esther

Don't spend too much time grieving for me, Elena. I know you're probably a little sad as you're reading this, since that means I'm dead and you're having to learn how to go on in a new way. I would be sad if you didn't miss me, so I won't tell you not to, but I will tell you to keep on living. The world is full of beautiful music, flowers, places, and experiences. Enjoy it all as much as you can. Just remember it's the people in your life that make it worthwhile...People and memories, not things are what's important in the end. Nothing else matters as much as that. — M. Reed McCall

Many people, after spending a long weekend being stealthily seduced by this grand dame of the South, mistakenly think that they have gotten to know her: they believe (in error) that after a long stroll amongst the rustling palmettoes and gas lamps, a couple of sumptuous meals, and a tour or two, that they have discovered everything there is to know about this seemingly genteel, elegant city. But like any great seductress, Charleston presents a careful veneer of half-truths and outright fabrications, and it lets you, the intended conquest, fill in many of the blanks. Seduction, after all, is not true love, nor is it a gentle act. She whispers stories spun from sugar about pirates and patriots and rebels, about plantations and traditions and manners and yes, even ghosts; but the entire time she is guarded about the real story. Few tourists ever hear the truth, because at the dark heart of Charleston is a winding tale of violence, tragedy and, most of all, sin. — James Caskey

This Time Dad You're Wrong

Well, I'm not just a fool; I sat alone for an hour and thought. I know I broke the rules, I knew it there on the spot; but what I did was alright, and I knew all along, in spite of the warning I got, 'cause this time, Dad you're wrong. I'll prove it to you, no, I'm not just a fool. I'm not just a fool, no, I'll prove it to you. Well, I can't tell you why, might not know why until after it's through, but at least I've got to try, and then you might understand too. But love is why I go back, like I knew all along, the fact is I even love you, 'cause this time, Dad you're wrong. I'll prove it to you, no, I'm not just a fool. I'm not just a fool, no, I'll prove it to you — Arthur Russell

Dostoyevsky's indignation at Afanasy Fet's innocent lyrics, "Whispers, timid breath, the nightingales trilled," is well known. This is simply disgraceful, wrote Dostoyevsky indignantly, and he speculated what an insulting impression such empty verses would have made if they'd been given to someone to read during the Lisbon earthquake! Some people protested: Yes, of course, Dostoyevsky is right, but we aren't having an earthquake, and we aren't in Lisbon, and after all, are we not allowed to love, to listen to nightingales, to admire the beauty of a beloved woman? But Dostoyevsky's argument held sway for a long time. It did so because of the way Russians perceive Russian life: as a constant, unending Lisbon earthquake. — Tatyana Tolstaya

Pick something you aren't just able to do; instead, pick something you feel like you were made to do and then do lots of that. You weren't just an incredible idea that God never got around to making. The next step happened for the world when God dropped you on the planet ... God decided to have us intersect history, not at just any time, but at this time. He made us to be good at a few things and bad at a couple of others. He made us to love some things and not like others. Most of all, He made us to dream ... We're part of God's much bigger plan for the whole world. Just like God's Son arrived here, so did you. And after Jesus arrived, God whispered to all of humanity ... It's your move. — Bob Goff

But the strangest of all sensations is the moment after you have been freed of the baby
and the baby of you
and you are handed this tiny shriveled creature to hold for the first time ... and you feel a mixture of unbelievable instant love and desperate fear. — Douglas Kennedy

. . . what I told Malory happened next is that when he looked over at her then it was like he'd been waiting a hundred years to see her, and this crazy ass Ledfeather girl all the way from Standing Rock, she looked off after the elk and then back at Doby through her hair, like she'd maybe been waiting for him too, but was scared a little, wanted to be sure, so Doby opened his mouth and said her name across the backseat of Junior's cab, Claire, like a flower opening in his mouth, and she held her lips together and nodded thank you to him, yes, thank you, and then swallowed what was in her throat and just let the sides of their hands touch together again some like it didn't really matter.
But it did. — Stephen Graham Jones

Men," said Mr. Kyle, "people have been trying to understand dogs ever since the beginning of time. One never knows what they'll do. You can read every day where a dog saved the life of a drowning child, or lay down his life for his master. Some people call this loyalty. I don't. I may be wrong, but I call it love - the deepest kind of love."
After these words were spoken, a thoughtful silence settled over the men. The mood was broken by the deep growling voice I had heard back in the washout.
"It's a shame that people all over the world can't have that kind of love in their hearts," he said. "There would be no wars, slaughter, or murder; no greed or selfishness. It would be the kind of world that God wants us to have - a wonderful world. — Wilson Rawls

After all this time, I know exactly where I belong. Here. With Edmond. And that's how I live now. — Meg Rosoff

Do you ever think about it? About nothingness. I do, I think about it all the time. Because of course it's nothingness that awaits us. Of course it is. If it weren't why would our hearts keep pumping any longer than they had to? Why wouldn't we all emerge into the world pure and innocent, and then before we had a chance to get in any trouble, before we had a chance to take our first oily shit, just immediately shut down our systems and head straight to the hereafter? If there were a better life after death, why bother getting fitter for survival's sake? Why would evolution even be a thing? Why fight for something second best? If death was really awesome, in a life or death situation, our bodies wouldn't muscle up with epinephrine and cortisol. Our brains would hit us up instead with sloppy, sleepy happy love. Hannibal Lecter would be our Mickey Mouse. No, there's fuckall to look forward to. Our bodies understand this. The real problem is, it's unbearable to know this. So we cope. — Elizabeth Little

When you are old, at evening candle-lit
beside the fire bending to your wool,
read out my verse and murmur, "Ronsard writ
this praise for me when I was beautiful."
And not a maid but, at the sound of it,
though nodding at the stitch on broidered stool,
will start awake, and bless love's benefit
whose long fidelities bring Time to school.
I shall be thin and ghost beneath the earth
by myrtle shade in quiet after pain,
but you, a crone, will crouch beside the hearth
mourning my love and all your proud disdain.
And since what comes to-morrow who can say?
Live, pluck the roses of the world to-day. — Pierre De Ronsard

But I love YOU, Edweird. Sure, I'll probably hook up with Yakob in Eclipse. After all, you're going to leave me for roughly three hundred pages. But that's neither here nor there. You and I were meant to be together. I mean you, me and sometimes Yakob ... and sometimes just Yakob and me, but mostly you and me. That's just the way I always dreamed it should be, you want to marry me. We'll marry."
"Hmmm," said Edweird thoughtfully after a long pause. "You know, I'm actually getting kind of tired of Yakob, if you want to know the truth. I mean, seriously, going steady with the same guy for half a century can make a stale relationship. Maybe it's time we see other people. You really set me straight on this, Stella. I want to thank you for makin me see this whole vampire-werewolf relationship thing more clearly."
Edweird then turned to Yakob, who had remained silent throughout. "It's over between us, toots. — Stephen Jenner

Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, 'You owe me.' Look what happens with a love like that. It lights the whole sky. — Hafez

Do you think this is it? That the life we have here on earth is all we'll have together?"
He looked at me with a half smile on his face. "I believe that true love exists. And I believe there are souls in this world that are meant to be together in this life and anything that comes after. After all this time, I've finally got you where I want you. There's nothing in heaven or hell that could keep us apart. — Liliana Hart

Part of me tingled with excitement. This was it. I was finally going to be with Will. We were going to make love for the first time - after all this time.
But the voices of doubt mocked me. What do you think you're doing? You can't give yourself to him - you've already been had! And by his father.
I reached the landing of the stairs and squeezed my eyes shut, desperately battling the raging war in my mind. If I'm with Will, it can erase the past. Our love is powerful enough to take the rape away. I truly believed I could delude myself into accepting he was my first - that what happened in Coach T's office was false. Yes, once we were together, it would change.
Melanie — Katie Ashley

I bent down and, and as our lips came together, I understood why people made such a big deal about this. First there was the novelty of it: the weird sensation of my lips pressed against hers, and the warm air sighing in and out of our noses, and the mysterious dark hollows behind our teeth. After that came the disappearing. The walls of the room fell away, the ceiling vanished, and we floated up, up to the stars, suspended in a clear crystal bubble... Our kiss contained us, it contained all of our hopes and fears and wants, and even more. It contained the world: Indians praying to painted gods, and skinny Chinese men pedaling their bicycles to work, and the glossy black water of a bayou at night, where, above it in a soft yellow room, a boy kissed a girl for the very first time while the silver-and-gold sparks of a comet rained down on them...... — George Bishop

I dare say if you'd asked him plumply what he meant in regard to the young lady, he would have told you - if he knew.'
'Why, don't you think he does know, Bromfield?'
'I'm not at all sure he does. You women think that because a young man dangles after a girl, or girls, he's attached to them. It doesn't at all follow. He dangles because he must, and doesn't know what to do with his time, and because they seem to like it. I dare say that Tom has dangled a good deal in this instance because there was nobody else in town. — William Dean Howells

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long. — William Shakespeare

Tolerance, beyond a point, is not widely preached, even though, inevitably, when two people rub shoulders on a daily basis, when they inhale each other's way of being as a life premise, there is going to be a sacrifice of sorts. You will not be the same person coming out of a relationship as you were going into it. Not that she understood this then, in the beginning. When she confronted him, when he apologized, when they shed tears, when they reaffirmed their love, when they did this time after time, she didn't sense the renunciation that was going on within her, because after all he was Todd, and he was precious to — A.S.A Harrison

Try it! You might like it !! I wrote this letter to tell you that I am very, very sorry. When you are mad at me, your face looks like Daddy's when he smelled that skunk that was hiding in the garage. And this made me very sad. Your face, not the smelly skunk. Are you still mad? Pleeze circle one: YES NO If you are still mad, pleeze accept my sorryness for taking your clock, calling you a sandwich stealer, playing games on your phone and drawing my very cute face on it, and trying to call Price Princess Sugar Plum. I did not reech her. But I did reech a guy named Moe by mistake, and he was not very polite at all. He said if I reech him again he will call the cops. That would be very bad becuz I do not think they serve chicken nuggets in jail. Then I would starve to death, which would not be a very fun time . Anyway, I made this sandwich just for you because I really care about you. I hope you love it! You are my very best friend! After Miss Penelope and Princess Sugar Plum. — Rachel Renee Russell

You still excite me after all this time, probably even more so now than in the beginning." My voice is a low threatening growl as the fingers on my free hand slide her panties over to reveal what I already know to be true; she is wet. "I love the way your body responds to me." I pull her from the wall and lead her to the fainting couch adorning the sitting area in my office. Brushing her hair back from her ear, I lean in and whisper, "Turn around, bend over, and put your hands on the end of the couch. I don't care what I do to you, those hands better not fucking move out of position. — Suzanne Steele

Love. What the hell did that word even mean? It got tossed around so flippantly, by everyone. What did it really mean? After all this time and everything that had happened, was he even capable? — C.J. Roberts

Maris smiled as he saw that day so clearly in his mind. He'd been pinned to the school wall by a bully who'd been pounding on him. Out of nowhere, this tiny little red-haired boy had come charging in like a hurricane. Barely five years old, Darling had been short for his age. But what he lacked in height, he made up for in ferocity. In no time at all, he'd beat the bully back and had him on the ground, crying for his mother. After making him swear he'd never even look at Maris again, Darling had stood up and come over to him. Forever proud and fierce, Darling had wiped the blood from his lips, then offered Maris his other hand. "Hi, I'm Darling Cruel. We should be friends." Maris had fallen in love instantly. And he'd been in love with Darling every day since. "You — Sherrilyn Kenyon

After all this time, after the world fell to ashes and the devil came out to play, she kept something that was wholly mine. — Christina Escamilla

After some time my husband reached over to hold my hand, which reminded me that at least there was this, at least we still had hands that remembered how to love each other, two bone-and-flesh flaps that hadn't complicated their simple love by speaking or thinking or being disappointed or having memories. They just held and were held and that is all. Oh, to be a hand. — Catherine Lacey

That was the only time, as I stood there, looking at that strange rubbish, feeling the wind coming across those empty fields, that I started to imagine just a little fantasy thing, because this was Norfolk after all, and it was only a couple of weeks since I'd lost him. I was thinking about the rubbish, the flapping plastic in the branches, the shore-line of odd stuff caught along the fencing, and I half-closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I'd ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field, and gradually get larger until I'd see it was Tommy, and he'd wave, maybe even call. The fantasy never got beyond that
I didn't let it
and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn't sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be. — Kazuo Ishiguro

I will love you if you don't marry me. I will love you if you marry someone else your co-star, perhaps, or Y., or even O., or anyone Z. through A., even R. Although sadly I believe it will be quite some time before two women can be allowed to marry and I will love you if you have a child, and I will love you if you have two children, or three children, or even more, although I personally think three is plenty, and I will love you if you never marry at all, and never have children, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all, and I must say that on late, cold nights I prefer this scenario out of all the scenarios I have mentioned. That, Beatrice, is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way. — Lemony Snicket

Is this Tree of Life a God one could worship? Pray to? Fear? Probably not. But it did make the ivy twine and the sky so blue, so perhaps the song I love tells a truth after all. The Tree of Life is neither perfect nor infinite in space or time, but it is actual, and if it is not Anselm's "Being greater than which nothing can be conceived," it is surely a being that is greater than anything any of us will ever conceive of in detail worthy of its detail. Is something sacred? Yes, say I with Nietzsche. I could not pray to it, but I can stand in affirmation of its magnificence. This world is sacred. — Daniel C. Dennett

It was then that Hook bit him.
Not the pain of this but its unfairness was what dazed Peter. It made him quite helpless. He could only stare, horrified. Every child is affected thus the first time he is treated unfairly. All he thinks he has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness. After you have been unfair to him he will love you again, but he will never afterwards be quite the same boy. No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter. — J.M. Barrie

It was only vanity and discouragement that sometimes made me feel alone with my endless love, but now that I was taking one of the risks my heart had urged upon me I could also feel I was not alone. If endless love was a dream, then it was a dream we all shared, even more than we all shared the dream of never dying or of traveling through time, and if anything set me apart it was not my impulses but my stubbornness, my willingness to take the dream past what had been agreed upon as the reasonable limits, to declare that this dream was not a feverish trick of the mind but was an actuality at least as real as that other, thinner, more unhappy illusion we call normal life. After all, the intimations of endless love were the same now as they were thousands of years before, while normal life had changed a thousand times and in a thousand different ways. Which then, was more real? — Scott Spencer

Am I not fit to this world or people around of me not fit for me, arguable ... without proper answer. Everyone had their logic, explanations, clarifications, examples but here also not solution. But the person himself/herself at least can figure out what's right and what's wrong. Then also there is no solution until he or she admitted that he or she is wrong. Admitting own mistake is hard to find because of so called pride. It's life you have to face everything here without solution, and the last thought is, all the problems solution will be after death only. It's the fact of the life. — Nutan Bajracharya

I attended my first Star Wars convention right after freshman year of college, when the wounds of the prequels were fresh. It was a big milestone for me. "Finally," I told my roommate, Svetlana, "I'll get to be myself and go among my people." "I don't understand," Svetlana said. "Who were you before? Literally the first thing you did on arriving at college was unpack your lightsabers. Do you think you've been hiding? If this is you concealing your love of Star Wars, what would it look like if you let it hang out? Would you just dress up as Jabba the Hutt all the time?" That wasn't a bad idea, I thought. Maybe I should. — Alexandra Petri