For Lovers Only Quotes & Sayings

Love as thou wilt. They are fools, who reckon Elua a soft god, fit only for the worship of starry-eyed lovers. — Jacqueline Carey

Trust is for lovers. In politics there are only converging interests. — Jalal Talabani

How the miracle of our meeting Shone there and sang, I didn't want to return From there to anywhere. Happiness instead of duty Was bitter delight to me. Not obliged to speak to anyone, I spoke for a long while. Let passions stifle lovers, Demanding answers, We, my dear, are only souls At the limits of the world. — Anna Akhmatova

The Temperature is Rising
The heartbeat quickens my breath is controlled,my senses are illuminated like a mother to her young. This feeling I have I've know it before, when the gates are opened I'll remember the beginning. Awaiting, dreaming imagining the endless possibilities of moments together as I give into my desires. My body reacts it has a mind of its own leaving little clues yet I continue on.
Poised and professional I cross my origin the passion that awaits it stirs like a simmer. The sweet aroma a treat being made just for him I know he will like, the hunger in his eyes his mouth soft and strong it only took me a moment as he continued to look on. I didn't even recognize my sound as I was in a sphere all alone I hoped and imagined it would be but my mind was left in awe like sweet chocolate after a meal. — M.I. Ghostwriter

There is no word for the recipient of the love. There is only a word for the giver. There is the assumption that lovers come in pairs. — David Levithan

i have been told many times by family, friends, colleagues and strangers that I, a black African Muslim lesbian, am not included in this vision; that my dreams are a reflection of my upbringing in a decadent, amoral Western society that has corrupted who I really am. But who am I, really? Am I allowed to speak for myself or must my desires form the battleground for causes I do not care about? My answer to that is simple: 'no one allows anyone anything.' By rejecting that notion you discover that only you can give yourself permission on how to lead your life, naysayers be damned. In the end something gives way. The earth doesn't move but something shifts. That shift is change and change is the layman's lingo for that elusive state that lovers, dreamers, prophets and politicians call 'freedom'. — Diriye Osman

Dress up and wait for me outside your house. I'll show you a pleasure-seeking night full of gluttony and lust. And that's only the ride in Her Majesty. — Alexandra Iff

Ah, well! then the young woman was only in advance of the age," said Miss Archer; "and what with that and the telephone, and that dreadful phonograph that bottles up all one says and disgorges at inconvenient times, we will soon be able to do everything by electricity; who knows but some genius will invent something for the especial use of lovers? something, for instance, to carry in their pockets, so when they are far away from each other, and pine for a sound of 'that beloved voice,' they will have only to take up this electrical apparatus, put it to their ears, and be happy. Ah! blissful lovers of the future! — Ella Cheever Thayer

THE SHIP SUNK IN LOVE
Should Love's heart rejoice unless I burn?
For my heart is Love's dwelling.
If You will burn Your house, burn it, Love!
Who will say, 'It's not allowed'?
Burn this house thoroughly!
The lover's house improves with fire.
From now on I will make burning my aim,
From now on I will make burning my aim,
for I am like the candle: burning only makes me brighter.
Abandon sleep tonight; traverse fro one night
the region of the sleepless.
Look upon these lovers who have become distraught
and like moths have died in union with the One Beloved.
Look upon this ship of God's creatures
and see how it is sunk in Love. — Rumi

Actors make bad lovers. Their most important kiss is for the camera. Not in a superficial way, in a really deep way. They can only give everything if they know someone is going to shout cut! — Rupert Everett

Perhaps you should put an advertisement in the papers. You can have it listed under livestock. Stallion sought, something like that."
Now, that was uncalled for, and outright rude. "What a splendid idea," she responded. "Only why play with metaphors? The direct approach is always best. How does this sound? Gentlemen required for a temporary affair of convenience. Unexceptionable reference from previous lovers required. Must be willing to be named in criminal correspondence. Should be presentable, experienced, and have a strong back. — Madeline Hunter

Lovers arrive at their first kisses with scars as well as longings. They're not always looking for advantage. Some need shelter, others press only for the hyperreality of ecstasy, for which they'll tell outrageous lies or make irrational sacrifice. But they rarely ask themselves what they need or want. — Ian McEwan

Beloved, Dearest One:
How I long to shout to the world our happiness. I feel that you and I are the only two people alive in the world - the only people that know the secret meaning of existence.
I have no diamond rings, no gifts of love that other lovers have for their beloved. My poetry is all I have to offer you. And so I dedicate my collected verses, 'Poems of Poverty,' to you, beloved.
Morris. — Anzia Yezierska

And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their beloved, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; and when fighting at each other's side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger? — Plato

There was something about the story she told us...that didn't seem right to him. He didn't buy the idea they'd been lovers. He reckoned it was something else. It's the sort of thing he used to pick up on, when I worked with him. You know as well as I do, sir, in a case like this you collect all sorts of facts, but only a few really matter, and Mr Madden had a gift for spotting them. Not that he always knew why: often it was just something he felt - a sort of instinct, I suppose - though he would have said it was simply a matter of paying attention. That's what he used to tell me. — Rennie Airth

World peace can blossom throughout the length and breadth of the world only when the world-peace-dreamers, world-peace-lovers and world-peace-servers desperately, sleeplessly and breathlessly long for the full manifestation of peace here on earth. — Sri Chinmoy

There is no salvation for the soul but to fall in Love. Only lovers can escape out of these two worlds. This was ordained in creation. Only from the heart can you reach the sky: The Rose of Glory can grow only from the heart. — Rumi

There would be no wedding for me. No bridal hopes. Not with Seth, not with anyone. Those things were lost to me forever. There was only an eternity alone, no lifelong lovers, only those I shared a night with ... . - Georgina — Richelle Mead

In my craft or sullen art Exercised in the still night When only the moon rages And the lovers lie abed With all their griefs in their arms, I labour by singing light Not for ambition or bread Or the strut and trade of charms On the ivory stages But for the common wages Of their most secret heart. Not for the proud man apart From the raging moon I write On these spindrift pages Nor for the towering dead With their nightingales and psalms But for the lovers, their arms Round the griefs of the ages, Who pay no praise or wages Nor heed my craft or art. — Dylan Thomas

You've no idea the restraint I've created. A word, which in a past life, never held special meaning for me, flows now through the blood of my veins as if to remind me it was always there. Like you, always there. You said I was not strong. So I created strength to fight against these natural feelings which keep me tied to you. I drew a line in the sand so I would not step towards your door again. I have boundaries, strength and pride. What I do not have is you. And that is the only part I wanted. You've no idea the restraint I've created. You've no idea the bold wall I've built to keep me out of your compromising arms. — Coco J. Ginger

While some dismiss the Bible as a dusty old book, I view its pages as portals to adventure. Not only is the book chock-full of clever plots and compelling stories, but it's laced with historical insights and literary beauty. When I open the Scripture, I imagine myself exploring an ancient kingdom ... With every encounter, I learn something new about their life journeys and am reminded that the Bible is more than a record of the human quest for God: it's the revelation of God's quest for us. - Scouting the Divine — Margaret Feinberg

I closed my eyes and immediately I pictured Brooklyn's full lips parted on a moan, her eyes glassy and her pupils dilated, her cheeks flushed and her body ... her smoking body bared only for me. — Stephanie Witter

Delilah cried out, lifting her head. The only truth that mattered right now was how much she needed him. Powerful thighs flexed against her own as he began to move. He reached for her, pulling her up, against his chest, his hands clasping her breasts, mouth open on the back of her neck. He drew hard, pumping up into her relentlessly, meeting her rocking motion back to him. Her head fell back on his shoulder, her own hands latching over his. Their fingers wove together, their bodies moving as if they'd been lovers for years.
As if they'd been made for each other. — Dee Tenorio

Lovers, if Angels could understand them, might utter
strange things in the midnight air. For it seems that everything's
trying to hide us. Look, the trees exist; the houses
we live in still stand where they were. We only
pass everything by like a transposition of air.
And all combines to suppress us, partly as shame,
perhaps, and partly as inexpressible hope. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Alas! I thought I had only a friendship for you, but the grief I now feel convinces me, that I cannot live without you. — Jeanne-Marie Leprince De Beaumont

I held Angie Luna in that room for hours, and I remember the different times we made love like epochs in a civilization, each movement and every touch, apex upon abyss. In the luxury of our bed, we tried every position and every angle. I explored the curves on her body and delighted in seeing the freedom of her ecstasy. Her desperate whispers and pleas. I told her I loved her, and she said she loved me too. We lay in bed with our limbs entangled, in a pacific silence that reminded me of existing on a beach just for the sake of such an existence. I couldn't imagine the world ever becoming better, and for some strange reason the thought slipped into my head that I had suddenly grown to be an old man because I could only hope to repeat, but never improve on, a night like this. I finally took her home sometime when the interstate was empty, and the bridges seemed to lead to nowhere, for they were desolate too. — Sergio Troncoso

In the 1950s in the United States, few music lovers were listening to chamber music. Daddy played Bach and Haydn on our phonograph for me. Not only did I become familiar with the form; he discussed the concerti. My own head start. My own Head Start. — Karen DeCrow

Pleasure cannot be shared; like Pain, it can only be experienced or inflicted, and when we give Pleasure to our Lovers or bestow Charity upon the Needy, we do so, not to gratify the object of our Benevolence, but only ourselves. For the Truth is that we are kind for the same reason as we are cruel, in order that we may enhance the sense of our own Power ... — Aldous Huxley

If there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their loves, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; and when fighting at each other's side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger? The veriest coward would become an inspired hero, equal to the bravest, at such a time; Love would inspire him. — Plato

A lot of people describe having sex with only one person as 'being faithful'.
It seems to me that faithfulness has very little to do with who you have sex with.
Faithfulness is about honoring your commitments and respecting your friends and lovers, about caring for their well-being as well as your own. — Dossie Easton

For the first time in history, middle-class women do not need men in the traditional ways - for safety, for money, for a life. So they're demanding instead what they always wanted but couldn't ask for: emotional connection, presence, intimacy. Sex with enough foreplay, enough seduction, enough closeness to please them. Men are baffled not only because the needs they are being asked to fill differ so from what their fathers and grandfathers understood to be their jobs but also because full-fledged intimacy requires strengths and skills they've never learned. Moreover ... they're strengths and skills that were once left solely to women: Men didn't have to develop them. This maturational mismatch may be contributing to distrust among lovers of all ages. — Dalma Heyn

To whom I owe the leaping delight
That quickens my senses in our wakingtime
And the rhythm that governs the repose of our sleepingtime,
the breathing in unison.
Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other
Who think the same thoughts without need of speech,
And babble the same speech without need of meaning ...
No peevish winter wind shall chill
No sullen tropic sun shall wither
The roses in the rose-garden which is ours and ours only
But this dedication is for others to read:
These are private words addressed to you in public. — T. S. Eliot

All things belonging to the earth will never change-the leaf, the blade, the flower, the wind that cries and sleeps and wakes again, the trees whose stiff arms clash and tremble in the dark, and the dust of lovers long since buried in the earth-all things proceeding from the earth to seasons, all things that lapse and change and come again upon the earth-these things will always be the same, for they come up from the earth that never changes, they go back into the earth that lasts forever. Only the earth endures, but it endures forever. — Thomas Wolfe

Only the guilty and the lovers really fear. The first because of what they are, the second for what they might lose. — Jonathan Carroll

Mattia's voice no longer stirred anything in his stomach, but he was aware of the idea of him and always would be, as the only true benchmark for everything that had come afterward. — Paolo Giordano

They say that these are not the best of times, but they're the only times I've ever known. And I believe there is a time for meditation in cathedrals of our own. Now I have seen that sad surrender in my lovers eyes ... and I can only stand apart and sympathize ... for we are only what our situations hand us ... it's either sadness or euphoria ... — Billy Joel

For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out. — James Baldwin

How strange it is that Socrates, after having made the children common, should hinder lovers from carnal intercourse only, but should permit love and familiarities between father and son or between brother and brother, than which nothing can be more unseemly, since even without them love of this sort is improper. How strange, too, to forbid intercourse for no other reason than the violence of the pleasure, as though the relationship of father and son or of brothers with one another made no difference. — Aristotle.

Before the code, women on screen took lovers, had babies out of wedlock, got rid of cheating husbands, enjoyed their sexuality, held down professional positions without apologizing for their self-sufficiency, and in general acted the way many of us think woman acted only after 1969. — Mick LaSalle

How many lovers?" He could have given her a straight answer. Dozens. Or, more specifically: Thirty-seven. Thirty-seven, if you counted mutual versions of the conduct he'd just engaged in, and Sebastian did.But what he finally said was, "Too many. And not enough." Her face was in shadow. He couldn't tell if she was disgusted by him, or if this was just a matter of idle curiosity for her.
She exhaled. "How many would be enough?"
He smiled sadly. "One more, Violet." He looked over at her - at her arms folded around herself, at her head, turned from his, as if that would be enough to distract him from the ferocity of his want. "I've only ever wanted one more. — Courtney Milan

[O]ur sages in the great [constitutional] convention ... intended our government should be a republic which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism. The rigours of a despotism often ... oppress only a few, but it is the very essence and nature of a democracy, for a faction claiming to oppress a minority, and that minority the chief owners of the property and truest lovers of their country. — Fisher Ames

There is no man on this earth that has the right to tell you how beautiful you are, for no words we use has enough power to tell that truth. Your beauty can only be describe by the heavens above in a language none of us know. — Vincent Edwards

When Miller had started working homicide, one of the things that had struck him was the surreal calm of the victims' families. People who had just lost wives, husbands, children, and lovers. People whose lives had just been branded by violence. More often than not, they were calmly offering drinks and answering questions, making the detectives feel welcome. A civilian coming in unaware might have mistaken them for whole. It was only in the careful way they held themselves and the extra quarter second it took their eyes to focus that Miller could see how deep the damage was. — James Corey

The popular Paderno Spiralizer, Veggetti Spiral Vegetable Cutter and other spiralizers and julienne slicers are perfect for food lovers on any kind of regimen, including Gluten-Free, Paleo or weight-loss diets. This book will not only give you great recipes to utilize your new vegetable cutter, but it will show you how to use these utensils safely and efficiently. — J.S. Amie

She'd always been in love with Quinn. Ever since they were kids. She just... she knew. He was the one for her. Her soul mate. The only problem was Quinn didn't feel the same way. She was his pal. His buddy. There'd never once been anything romantic between them, and if he even suspected how she felt, he'd never let on. — Samantha Chase

PRAISE FOR 'THE JOURNEY HOME'
Many saints are known and praised by all. We pray to them in litanies and celebrate their feast days. But the vast majority of holy men and women live heroic lives quietly before God.
Loyal to family, lovers of God, servants in the Church, these unsung saints live everyday life as an example for us. David Hanneman is one such man. His story is exemplary and should be told to the world. He not only lived a noble life, but also suffered with heroism and grace as he passed into glory.
This is a story to encourage and bless us all. We are thankful to Joseph Hanneman for sharing his father and making his story known to us who need such examples to encourage us as we face the difficulties and challenges of life. — Stephen K. Ray

Let me begin by telling you that I was in love. An ordinary statement, to be sure, but not an ordinary fact, for so few of us learn that love is tenderness, and tenderness is not, as a fair proportian suspect, pity; and still fewer know that happiness in love is not the absolute focusing of all emotion in another: one has always to love a good many things which the beloved must come only to symbolize; the true beloveds of this world are in their lovers's eyes lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favourite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory. — Truman Capote

She is my morning, she is my evening; we have a love that blooms over and again, more beautifully each time than the last. You will see that we are not lovers like others, for whom love is both a punishment and a gift ... Our love has never punished, only rewarded. Such love therein lies the eudaimonic life. — Roman Payne

The process which had begun in her - and in he a little earlier only than it must come to all of us - was the great renunciation of old age as it prepared for death, wraps itself up in its chrysalis, which may be observed at the end of lives that are at all prolonged, even in old lovers who have lived for one another, in old friends bound by the closest ties of mutual sympathy, who, after a certain year, cease to make the necessary journey or even to cross the street to see one another, cease to correspond, and know that they will communicate no more in this world. — Marcel Proust

I believe there are only one or two people in the world with whom one can have a true connection. When you've been fortunate enough to marry one of those people, you are reluctant to settle for less. One can have lovers, those are easily found, but true love rarely strikes twice. — Nicole Richie

Once these two had been joined together in love, or something like love; they had made two babies, and yet, only fifteen years later, the last tie between them was broken now. All lost, all gone. Nothing lasted, nothing. Even this forty-million-year world that the Oversoul had preserved as if in ice, even it would melt before the fire. Permanence was always an illusion, and love was just the disguise that lovers wore to hide the death of their union from each other for a while. — Orson Scott Card

Why did I not die? More miserable than man ever was before, why did I not sink into forgetfulness and rest? Death snatches away many blooming children, the only hopes of their doting parents: how many brides and youthful lovers have been one day in the bloom of health and hope, and the next a prey for worms and the decay of the tomb! Of what materials was I made, that I could thus resist so many shocks, which, like the turning of the wheel, continually renewed the torture?
But I was doomed to live; — Mary Shelley

The moon is too old, the flower is too old;even the sunset is not enough. The only relevant metaphor for you is your mirror image. — Amit Kalantri

Todd was neuter, it seemed, except for the near-orgasmic pleasure he took from his formulas. Cono guessed that only a person who didn't really care for people could find personalities in equations, and friends in matrices. Todd spoke of data sets as if they were current or future lovers. Cono admired him for his ability to find joy beyond the secretory impulses that controlled most humans. — Victor Robert Lee

A servant wants to be rewarded for what he does. A lover wants only to be in love's presence, that ocean whose depth will never be known. — Rumi

For the myths of the East, the myths of the West, the myths of men, and the myths of women - these have so saturated our consciousness that truthful contact between nations and lovers can only be the result of heroic effort. — David Henry Hwang

'WHEN two lovers are making love, and if they are both no-selves, nothingness, then a spontaneous pleasurable sensation happens. Then their body energy, their whole being, loses all identity; they are no more themselves - they have fallen into abyss. But this can happen only for a moment: again they regain, again they start clinging. That's why people become afraid in love.' — Rajneesh

But even I know that love doesn't steer by logic, nor is power distributed evenly. Lovers arrive at their first kisses with scars as wells as longings. They're not always looking for advantage. Some need shelter, others press only for the hyperreality of ecstasy, for which they'll tell outrageous lies or make irrational sacrifice. But they rarely ask themselves what they need or want. Memories are poor for past failures. Childhoods shine through adult skin, helpfully or not. So do the laws of inheritance that bind a personality. The lovers don't know there's no free will. I haven't heard enough radio drama to know more than that, though pop songs have taught me that they don't feel in December what they felt in May, and that to have a womb may be incomprehensible to those who don't and that the reverse is also true. — Ian McEwan

Riley was certain his wife would argue about that. He wasn't going to give her the chance to. "I want to know everything he said to you, and I damn straight want to know why I'm only hearing about it now."
She sat back. "Because I was fairly certain you would throw a hissy fit and then all of it would have been for nothing. We were supposed to look like star-crossed lovers, not like you were about to change into the Hulk. Should your eyebrow be twitching like that?"
Mia leaned over. "It does that when he throws a hissy fit. — Lexi Blake

The elders say- difficult to prove- that winged creatures also dream. The birds are lovers of heights, always searching out landing spots, never constant here at the foot of the human race. 'It's that they discovered a magical advantage ... ' they say, 'the sound of silence.'
At the foot of the clouds the raindrops come earlier, it's true, and the silence of the sky is something unattainable for those who don't fly- we have never experimented. The dream of the birds was that man of them headed for a land where they experienced a similar magic to that lived by them.
In the final analysis, music is the only human sound similar to that of silence. — Ondjaki

An amorous night is to approach a state of perfection that only two lovers can reach; you see this requires--no it demands, implores the deepest reverence, trust, insatiable desire, and mad lust for her. To worship her by abolishing the weakness of fear, the fear of betrayal, infidelity, the lack of reciprocation and bequeathing the body and soul to her, to worship her, to yearn and gain her unfettered permission to her body and soul, to accept the primal desires the animal needs that dwell inside, yet to have passion, tender love-making and violent sex all in the same night, as one--approaching this perfection is approaching heaven on earth. — Jack Serv

I HAD one clear day of happiness, and I shall never forget it. Even the miserable ending to it cannot change its quality in my memory; for everything that Jennie and I did was good, and unhappiness came only from the outside. Not many - lovers or friends - can say as much. For friends and lovers are quick to wound, quicker than strangers, even; the heart that opens itself to the world, opens itself to sorrow. I don't think that we spoke of the question of where Jennie was to stay that night. She was sailing in the morning (on the Mauretania, I remember she told me - how strange it was to hear the old name again) and we both seemed to take it for granted that we'd stay together until then. We — Robert Nathan

Androma was good at what she did. But so was Dex.
Besides, a prodigy could only outrun her master for so long. — Sasha Alsberg

It is possible for a spinster to be disappointed in lovers, but only the married are ever disappointed in love. — Myrtle Reed

The world, with all its impossible variegation and the basic miracle of its existence, draws most mourners out of their grief and back into itself. The homosexual forsythia blooms; the young Irish dancers in Killarney dance, their arms as rigid as shovel handles; secret deals are done involving weapons or office space or crude oil or used cars or drugs; new lovers, believing they will never really have to get up, lie down together; the Large Hadron Collider smashes the Higgs boson into view; snow drapes its white stoles on the bare limbs of winter; the crack of the bat swung by a hefty Dominican pulls a crowd to its feet in Boston; bricks for the new hospital in Phnom Penh are laid in true courses; the single-engine Cessna lands safely in an Ohio alfalfa field during a storm. How can you resist? The true loss in only to the dying, and even the won't feel it when the dying's done. — Daniel Menaker

They kissed for the sort of endless moment that only exists between lovers whose lips are still new territory to one another. — Scott Lynch

Alana, you could never disappoint me," he shifts while still on top of me. "I may have had more lovers than you, and I may take my clothes off for countless women, but you are the only one who can strip me bare. — Marissa Carmel

There's something about you,
Your eyes speak a story in a language only known to my soul. The kind of communication we as humans dream about, the one that reaches into the core of who you are and loves you for it.
It doesn't appear often or by accident & when it happens you just know " There's something about you ". — Nikki Rowe

My tears of joy
hear the raindrops crying,
as the rain never wants to pour
down on my cloudy days
when I make
our love-dreams
for the sun to dream
only for you ...
(From the poem "Only For You" By Munia Khan) — Munia Khan

Those who love, friends and lovers, know that love is not only a blinding flash, but also a long and painful struggle in the darkness for the realization of definitive recognition and reconciliation. — Albert Camus

Lovers must not, like usurers, live for themselves alone. They must finally turn from their gaze at one another back toward the community. If they had only themselves to consider, lovers would not need to marry, but they must think of others and of other things. They say their vows to the community as much as to one another, and the community gathers around them to hear and to wish them well, on their behalf and its own. It gathers around them because it understands how necessary, how joyful, and how fearful this joining is. These lovers, pledging themselves to one another "until death," are giving themselves away, and they are joined by this as no law or contract could join them. Lovers, then, "die" into their union with one another as a soul "dies" into its union with God. And so here, at the very heart of community life, we find not something to sell as in the public market but this momentous giving. If the community cannot protect this giving, it can protect nothing ... — Wendell Berry

I wanted to only collab with women for 'Lovers Holiday.' — Theophilus London

Therefore, when Ziqi died, Boya, realizing that no one else would understand his music as well as his friend, smashed his qin at Ziqi's grave and sighed, "Why play the qin when there's no more zhiyin to understand my music!" From then on, the term zhiyin had been used to describe soul mates. "Precious Orchid," Qing Zhen looked at me intently while a solitary bird soared behind him in the vast sky, "you realize how lucky we are? Most people search all their life for a zhiyin but never find one. We're not only lovers; we're also zhiyin." Though I was used to compliments from men and usually did not take them seriously, this one from Qing Zhen touched a silk string in my heart. — Mingmei Yip

True love survives all shocks: an affection originally produced by admiration for unusual beauty may not only survive the loss of that beauty, but may become more intense if the beauty has changed into ugliness through causes that bind the lovers together in tender associations. — Arthur Lynch

He could feel himself gliding down like the sail of a weightless craft, forever plunging into the great beyond below where mermaids sing and summon their lovers home, further down into the depths of some complacent serenity, further down where thoughts float away and never return and the lightness is so grand that there is no other worldly place imaginable, for there is no world left to be
considered. There is only the soul, free from the prison of the body, and it is released to travel
another millennium through time, carrying with it the progress and industry gathered from the
mind previously occupied. — Matthew Chase Stroud

I'm telling you this for one reason and one reason only: No matter how sure you are of someone's love, it's always nice to hear it. — Mike Gayle

She was of course only too good for him; but as nobody minds having what is too good for them, he was very steadily earnest in the pursuit of the blessing, and it was not possible that encouragement from her should be long wanting. — Jane Austen

Even when I succeed in getting there we only have an hour. At ten o'clock the night-watch trumpet sounds and those who are out return to bed. What a blameless, hardworking nation we are. In bed by ten, faithful husbands and faithful wives. It is no city for lovers, for those out late on the street are viewed with suspicion. — Deborah Moggach

It struck me again the ways Angelo and I were like them. Angelo was my angel, and I was ever on the ground, looking up at him. It was no wonder Jon and I hadn't been able to make things work
we'd both longed for something grander. And it was no wonder Cole and Angelo had been drawn to each other, and yet, they had only brushed wings in the night, neither one of them able to stop in their flight. — Marie Sexton

Where are the ethical concerns, that so many people called animal lovers invoke, when you steal the children of wild dog mothers and other family members from right before their eyes? Do ethics always refer only to what people think appropriate for purely subjective reasons?
Ultimately, our long-term research resulted in a very sad picture: With the exception of the random puppy, who today as an adult actually is interested in people, neither male Maccia nor the most of the other "rescued" dogs are socially and environmentally secure, but had remained shy and partly vegetate in kennels with empty eyes. Such dogs are neither fish nor fowl, although taken from the wild population in the early age of about eight to twelve weeks (except Maccia, whom Funny "rescued" at the age of four months, which is even more irresponsible). — Gunther Bloch

He held her face in his hands, and stared into her eyes, and said that she was his for only a while anyway, and that it wasn't his going to Cranwell that would split them up. "You're destined for greater things, Susannah Hammond. I see it in you. You're so clever, so bright. So beautiful. So special. I'm not any of those things. Except when I'm flying, maybe. Down here, I'm ordinary. I'm going to be just a memory for you. A sweet one, I hope. Happy. But just a part of your past. I might be good enough for now, but I'm not good enough forever. Not for you. — Elizabeth Noble

Everyone knows what falling in love is like but being in love is what people have lost. That intimacy to be in bed with somebody and just laugh and not hold anybody accountable for what they say. — Mark Polish

Adventures are to the adventurous. They abound on every side; but only the chosen few have the courage to embrace them. And they will not come to you; you must go out to seek them. Then they meet you half-way, and rush into your arms, for they know their true lovers. — Allen Grant

A man who leaves his wife is also a kind of immigrant. He rejects the home he's always known for another. Is it a surprise that Americans have the highest divorce rate in the world? If ditched lovers are also counted, then our rate of betrayal becomes truly stratospheric. To start over and advance or save ourselves, if only in our minds, we're willing to destroy everything. Soaked in a depthless, sampling culture, we're also expert at forgetting. Not only do we have no historical memory, but our personal past can be willfully and instantly erased, with hardly a ripple in its wake, and there's no one around, no community, to remind us of our shames. Extreme narcissists, we cling to bizarre narratives that allow us to make the most preposterous statements without flinching, or indulge in the most perverse and damaging behaviors. — Linh Dinh

The world needs lovers who fit, or how would we go on? To be only one of one for a life? That's a lonely life. — Nora Roberts

He learned, though slowly, what all great harrowed lovers learn: that love is what most surely compels love
is perhaps, except for brute force, the only thing that does, though only (and this was the terrible gift he had been given) when the lover truly believes, as August could, that when his love is strong enough it must surely be returned
and August's was. — John Crowley

I feel what they feel: man-hating, that volatile admixture of pity, contempt, disgust, envy, alienation, fear, and rage at men. It is hatred not only for the anonymous man who makes sucking noises on the street, not only for the rapist or the judge who acquits him, but for what the Greeks called philo-aphilos, 'hate in love,' for the men women share their lives with-husbands, lovers, friends, fathers, brothers, sons, coworkers. — Judith Levine

Suppose, for instance, that men were only represented in literature as the lovers of women, and were never the friends of men, soldiers, thinkers, dreamers; how few parts in the plays of Shakespeare could be allotted to them; how literature would suffer! We might perhaps have most of Othello; and a good deal of Antony; but no Caesar, no Brutus, no Hamlet, no Lear, no Jaques
literature would be incredibly impoverished, as indeed literature is impoverished beyond our counting by the doors that have been shut upon women. — Virginia Woolf

I was reading a poem by my idol, Wallace Stevens, in which he said, 'The self is a cloister of remembered sounds.' My first response was, Yesss! How did he know that? It's like he's reading my mind. But my second response was, I need some new sounds to remember. I've been stuck in my little isolation chamber for so long I'm spinning through the same sounds I've been hearing in my head all my life. If I go on this way, I'll get old too fast, without remembering any more sounds than I already know now. The only one who remembers any of my sounds is me. How do you turn down the volume on your personal-drama earphones and learn how to listen to other people? How do you jump off one moving train, marked Yourself, and jump onto a train moving in the opposite direction, marked Everybody Else? I loved a Modern Lovers song called, 'Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste,' and I didn't want to waste mine. — Rob Sheffield

Lovers think they are looking for each other, but there is only one search: wandering This world is wandering that, both inside one transparent sky. In here there is no dogma and no heresy. — Rumi

Admittedly, there's a certain coarseness about [businessmen]; for there's no point in even trying to be [one] unless your love for money is so absolute that you're ready to accompany it on the walk to a double suicide. For money, believe you me, is a hard mistress, and none of her lovers are let off lightly. As a matter of fact, I've just been visiting a businessman and, according to him, the only way to succeed is to practice the "triangled" technique: try to escape your obligations, annihilate your kindly feelings, and geld yourself of the sense of shame. — Soseki Natsume

Books about books are a rare species, special tomes for writers and book lovers. More than an affirmation of taste, a book about books is often a spirited celebration and sincere investigation. Quickly coveted, it remains on that particular shelf, guarded and revered, and eventually slips out of print. What good company we will keep then, among a library lost, only momentarily invisible, waiting patiently to be found. — Tom Cardamone

I've never gotten a love letter before. But reading these notes like this, one after the other, it feels like I have. It's like ... it's like there's only ever been Peter. Like everyone else that came before him, they were all to prepare me for this. I think I see the difference now, between loving someone from afar and loving someone up close. When you see them up close, you see the real them, but they also get to see the real you. And Peter does. He sees me, and I see him. — Jenny Han

( ... ) rest content and satisfied that as you are caught in the noose of love it is one of worth and merit that has taken you, and one that has not only the the four S's that they say true lovers ought to have, but a complete alphabet; only listen to me and you will see how I can repeat it by rote. He is to my eyes and thinking, Amiable, Brave, Courteous, Distinguished, Elegant, Fond, Gay, Honorable, Illustrious, Loyal, Manly, Noble, Open, Polite, Quickwitted, Rich, and the S's according to the saying, and then Tender, Veracious: X does not suite him, for it is a rough letter; Y has been given already; and Z Zealous for your honour. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

The truth is that we stray and have affairs not because we are all naturally inclined to have multiple mates but because our bond with our partner is either inherently weak or has deteriorated so far that we are unbearably lonely. We haven't understood love or known how to repair it. So, confused and lost in a world that sells sex aggressively as the be-all and end-all of a relationship, the only obvious "solution" has been to seek out new lovers to try to create the longed-for connection. — Sue Johnson

Displaced Person's Song

If you see a train this evening,
Far away, against the sky,
Lie down in your woolen blanket,
Sleep and let the train go by.

Trains have called us, every midnight,
From a thousand miles away,
Trains that pass through empty cities,
Trains that have no place to stay.

No one drives the locomotive,
No one tends the staring light,
Trains have never needed riders,
Trains belong to bitter night.

Railway stations stand deserted,
Rights-of-way lie clear and cold,
What we left them, trains inherit,
Trains go on, and we grow old.

Let them cry like cheated lovers,
Let their cries find only wind,
Trains are meant for night and ruin,
And we are meant for song and sin. — Thomas Pynchon

He offered her power, money, status ...
a giant prison, all in exchange
for only ... her soul. — Coco J. Ginger

sweet spring is your
time is my time is our
time for springtime is lovetime
and viva sweet love

(all the merry little birds are
flying in the floating in the
very spirits singing in
are winging in the blossoming)

lovers go and lovers come
awandering awondering
but any two are perfectly
alone there's nobody else alive

(such a sky and such a sun
i never knew and neither did you
and everybody never breathed
quite so many kinds of yes)

not a tree can count his leaves
each herself by opening
but shining who by thousands mean
only one amazing thing

(secretly adoring shyly
tiny winging darting floating
merry in the blossoming
always joyful selves are singing)

sweet spring is your
time is my time is our
time for springtime is lovetime
and viva sweet love — E. E. Cummings

Great lovers lie in hell, the poet says. Even now, long afterwards, I cannot destroy the images. They remain within me like the yearnings of an addict. I need only hear certain words, see certain gestures, and my thoughts begin to tumble. I despise myself for thinking of her. Even if she were dead, I would feel the same. Her existence blackens my life. — James Salter

And that is the trouble with all lovers: they want more love, because they don't understand that the real desire is not for more love, but for something more than love. Their language ends with love; they don't know any way that is higher than love, and love does not satisfy. On the contrary, the more you love the more thirsty you become. At the fourth center of love, one feels a tremendous satisfaction only when energy starts moving to the fifth center. — Rajneesh