Heart Ache Quotes & Sayings

But then, out of nowhere, Cletus said, "I guess we're going to have to practice."

"Pardon me?"

"Practice kissing. Like what you did with Billy."

I reeled back as my head whipped to the side, our eyes colliding. I couldn't believe my ears. "You think . . . you want me to practice kissing with Billy?"

"No. No. Absolutely not." Again, Cletus's gaze flickered over me. "I mean you and me. I'll help you practice."

The heart flip returned, but this time it was more forceful than before. And it brought some friends - the tummy cartwheel, the throat cinch, and the chest ache.

What. The. Hell . . .? — Penny Reid

My heart is tuned to sorrow, and the strings Vibrate most readily to minor chords, Searching and sad; my mind is stuffed with words Which voice the passion and the ache of things: Illusions beating with their baffled wings Against the walls of circumstance. — Amy Lowell

This was a time in my life when I was so filled with longing for so many things that were so far out of reach that at least once a day I thought my heart would implode from the sheer force of unrequited desire.

By desire I am not referring to apartments I wanted to occupy or furniture I wanted to buy or even people I was attracted to (well, I'm referring to those things a little) but, rather, a sensation I can only describe as the ache of not being there yet. — Meghan Daum

Hearts are united when they ache and break together. — Jack Hyles

What a vast fraternity it is,
that of 'Hearts that Ache.' For the last three months it has seemed to me as though all society were coming to me, to drop its mask for a moment and initiate me into the mystery. How we do suffer! And we go on laughing; for, as a practical joke at our expense, life is a success. — Henry Adams

Can two trapped people help each other, or will they simply bring each other more heart ache? — Anne Eliot

I still need you, I murmured. He rested his forehead against mine and closed his eyes, his breathing irregular. Then his lips found mine again. It made my heart ache, made my soul ache. I loved him far too much. — Karina Halle

I was not wounded in any part of my body, but I had never experienced such intense pain, such a ripping of the nerves, such an ache of the heart. — Yann Martel

Yes. I remember.
His voice had deepened. I remember. Mina did, too, every conversation they'd had over breakfast, and it made her heart ache. Such a strange thing ... She suddenly couldn't laugh anymore. — Meljean Brook

I ache not from need -
but from my heart's gluttony of you. — Muse

The ache in his heart returned. Not an intense pain, but the memory of intense pain. — Haruki Murakami

And the music he was making wasn't frightening. It was achingly lovely. It was piercing, yet sweet. Powerful, yet simple. ( ... )
But I didn't move. And I didn't speak. I just listened. For how long, I don't know. And as I continued to listen, my heart began to ache with a feeling I had no name for. My heart felt swollen in my chest. I lifted my hand to my chest as if I could make it stop.
But with each note Wilson played, the feeling grew. It wasn't grief and it wasn't pain. It wasn't despair or even remorse. It felt more like ... gratitude. It felt like love. — Amy Harmon

To have an encounter with God is to feel the ache of his loving heart for the redemptions of the earth — Sunday Adelaja

Does vengeance or blame ease the sorrow of heart-ache? We all make mistakes. Life can't be lived without harm to others. — Janny Wurts

Still, he could feel a fine cord stretched between them, a thin luminous fiber that ran from his chest all the way across the continent and forked into theirs. Never before had he lived through a fever without his mother; when he'd been sick in Debrecen she'd taken the train to be with him. Never had he finished a year at school without knowing that soon he'd be home with his father, working beside him in the lumberyard and walking through the fields with him in the evening. Now there was another filament, one that linked him to Klara. And Paris was her home, this place thousands of kilometers from his own. He felt the stirring of a new ache, something like homesickness but located deeper in his mind; it was an ache for the tie when his heart had been a simple and satisfied thing, small as the green apples that grew in his father's orchard. — Julie Orringer

Do you know I'd do anything for you?" he asked. "Do you know I think about you constantly? Sometimes I think I'm crazy. You make me crazy. I'm insane when I'm not with you. Jesus, Kat, I ache."
She grabbed at his neck.
"I need you so badly," he continued, breathlessly. "I need us. I need to feel us like this, because I swear to God, my heart, it beats only for you. — Sophie Jackson

And the flavor of Pippa's kiss
bittersweet and strange
stayed with me all the way back uptown, swaying and sleepy as I sailed home on the bus, melting with sorrow and loveliness, a starry ache that lifted me up above the windswept city like a kite: my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky. — Donna Tartt

Harry had felt the gnawing ache for alcohol from the moment he woke up that morning. First as an instinctive physical craving, then as a panic-stricken fear because he had put a distance between himself and his medicine by not taking his hip flask or any money with him to work. Now the ache was entering a new phase in which it was both a wholly physical pain and a feeling of blank terror that he would be torn to pieces. The enemy below was pulling and tugging at the chains, the dogs were snarling up at him from the pit, somewhere in his stomach beneath his heart. God, how he hated them. He hated them as much as they hated him. — Jo Nesbo

Even when our heart aches, we summon the strength that maybe we didn't even know we had, and we carry on; we finish the race. — Barack Obama

Cool wind soothed her. She could breathe sweet air. The only heat she felt was the warm, familiar heat from the mage's body. Opening her eyes, she saw that she stood close to him. Raising her head, she gazed up into his face ... and felt a swift, sharp ache in her heart.
Raistlin's thin face glistened with sweat, his eyes reflected the pure, white flame of the burning bodies, his breath came fast and shallow. He seemed lost, unaware of his surroundings. And there was a look of ecstasy on his face, a look of exultation, of triumph.
"I understand," Crysania said to herself, holding onto his hands. "I understand. This is why he cannot love me. He has only one love in this life and that is his magic. To this love he will give everything, for this love he will risk everything! — Margaret Weis

Becca Gardner is wonderful as the good-hearted little Griff who refuses to be daunted by all the heart-ache and resentment on dad's ranch and this young actress proves there's another young child actress in Hollywood besides Dakota Fanning. — Richard Roeper

Kingsley watched her disappear from the room, wondering if his heart would break. Logic informed him that of course it would not. The heart was no more than a muscle, a pump which distributed blood about the body; it had nothing whatsoever to do with a man's emotions. But if that was the case, why did it ache so? — Ben Elton

Love isn't a burst o' trumpets and a flock o' doves descendin' out o' the heavens to roost on yer heads.
Tis sharin' a cup o' tea by the hearth on a cold winter's night.
'Tis the look in yer husband's eyes when ye lay yer first child in his arms.
Tis the ache in yer heart when ye watch the light in his eyes dim fer the last time, and know a part o' ye has gone out o' this world with him ... — Teresa Medeiros

I missed home like the ache of hunger, something in me left empty. I'd missed it every day since we crossed out of the valley, going over the mountains. Roots - yes. There were roots in my heart, as deep as any corruption could go. — Naomi Novik

Calling it a simple schoolgirl crush was like saying a Rolls-Royce was a vehicle with four wheels, something like a hay-wagon. She did not giggle wildly and blush when she saw him, nor did she chalk his name on trees or write it on the walls of the Kissing Bridge. She simply lived with his face in her heart all the time, a kind of sweet, hurtful ache. She would have died for him.. — Stephen King

The nature of poems
Is a matter of words and deeds
An intimate encounter of voice
In the ache of the heart
In the labor of breathing
A hesitant casting of eyes
Away from the mundane to see
That delicate and shiny thing
In the oddly prosaic rock pile
An extravagance of conceit
An abundance of grace
A prayer for words to speak — Kendall Dana Lockerman

And her heart burst like the stars do in the end, and She fell on her knees. But the whole world looked her in awe. She lit the whole universe with her fire for a moment. In the end, she was as beautiful as the stardust falling from the sky and her heart didn't ache anymore. — Akshay Vasu

He won't feel a fraction of what I do for you. You won't change his life. And you will always wonder about what could have been, always feel that funny little ache right here. He puts his hand over your heart. — Josh Lanyon

He had never seen a gunshot wound. He kept asking what it felt like? dull or sharp? an ache or burn? My head was spinning and naturally I could give him no kind of coherent answer but I remember thinking dimly that it was sort of like the first time I got drunk, or slept with a girl; not quite what one expected, really, but once it happened one realized it couldn't be any other way. Neon lights: Motel 6, Dairy Queen. Colors so bright, they nearly broke my heart. — Donna Tartt

Handsome husbands often make a wife's heart ache. — Samuel Richardson

As the love of him who is love transcends ours as the heavens are higher than the earth, so must he desire in his child infinitely more than the most jealous love of the best mother can desire in hers. He would have him rid of all discontent, all fear, all grudging, all bitterness in word or thought, all gauging and measuring of his own with a different rod from that he would apply to another's. He will have no curling of the lip; no indifference in him to the man whose service in any form he uses; no desire to excel another, no contentment at gaining by his loss. He will not have him receive the smallest service without gratitude; would not hear from him a tone to jar the heart of another, a word to make it ache, be the ache ever so transient. — George MacDonald

Youth is no less vulnerable, by the very quality it has of making the heart ache that beholds and has lost it. — Ellis Peters

No matter how one's heart aches, one can do the necessary things and do them well. — Myrtle Reed

That's when I notice Cheryl and Mickey cuddled up on the couch. She's leaning on his shoulder, his arm around her, her leg across his lap. Cheryl throws glances at Kerry that say, "Look at me!" while Kerry shoots a "You go, girl!" smirk right back. I think of CK, how he and I often sat like that. Not because we were seconds from making out or wanted to look like a couple, but just out of a deep, platonic connection. My heart hits a higher notch on the ache-o-meter, my teeth sear into my bottom lip, and then something inside me snaps as cleanly as a crayon. — Kea Alwang

A woman stood, smiling with adoration at the baby in her arms. Suddenly, she turned, showing her angelic face. Her eyes were large, beautiful, brown eyes, but terror displayed across her face.
Elizabeth felt a deep, sharp ache penetrate her heart, as she reached deep for air and it came in a low gasp. Her hands flew to her chest. She soon realized the window in front of her was the same one in the vision. — Beth Bares

Will and George were doing well in business, and Joe was writing letters home in rhymed verse and making as smart an attack on all the accepted verities as was healthful.

Samuel wrote to Joe, sayings, "I would be disappointed if you had not become an atheist, and I read pleasantly that you have, in your age and wisdom, accepted agnosticism the way you'd take a cookie on a full stomach. But I would ask you with all my understanding heart not to try to convert your mother. Your last letter only made her think you are not well. Your mother does not believe there are many ills uncurable by good strong soup. She puts your brave attack on the structure of our civilization down to a stomach ache. It worries her. Her faith is a mountain, and you, my son, haven't even got a shovel yet. — John Steinbeck

I expect my sister to be compassionate about my heart ache. Gentle. Sympathetic.
What i get is, "you're a goddamn idiot, you know that, Drew?"
I bat you were starting to wonder why we call her The Bitch. Well, here you go. — Emma Chase

And as the ax bites into the wood, be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it. — Paul Harding

He cupped my face gently in his hands, holding it in place. My breath hitched in my lungs as he leaned in to drop a soft kiss on my lips. Where the other kisses we had shared ignited the lust we felt for each other, this kiss was something entirely different. The softness of his lips caressed mine as his tongue slowly slid into my mouth. He explored my mouth leisurely, never increasing the intensity. It was as if he was trying to memorize every detail and was meticulous with his mission. The tenderness of his mouth made my heart ache and I wished it would never end. — Tiffany King

When you are a Protector, in darkness you see the world through different eyes and the line between Beast and Savior is so thin, you find yourself wondering if it was ever there to begin with.

The beat of a heart makes your soul ache, instincts so raw fighting them seems futile and until you are marked, the world holds its breath as within you lies the power to destroy them all. — Kathryn Robson

Her gaze met his. "What do you want more than anything?"
Right now, he felt like he could gaze into her green eyes for a century or two. They were amazing, the way they flared with anger, twinkled with humor, or softened with compassion. "I want to be loved, honestly and truly loved, for who I am. And I want to love a woman with all my heart for all my life. I want to ache for her mind, for her body, for her companionship."
Her eyes widened. "Oh." (Toni & Ian) — Kerrelyn Sparks

I only know that you are the breath in my lungs, the beat of my heart, the ache in my soul, and without you, I am empty. — Rachel Gibson

An English teacher at school once said to her, 'Alice, one thing I hope you never find out is that a broken heart hurts physically.' Nothing she has ever experienced has prepared her for the pain of this. Most of the time her heart feels as though it's waterlogged and her ribcage, her arms, her back, her temples, her legs all ache in a dull, persistent way: but at times like this the incredulity and the appalling irreversibility of what has happened cripple her with a pain so bad she often doesn't speak for days. — Maggie O'Farrell

Did you love well what very soon you left? Come home and take me in your arms and take away this stomach ache, headache, heartache. Never so full, I never was bereft so utterly. The winter evenings drift dark to the window. Not one work will make you, where you are, turn in your day, or wake from your night toward me. The only gift I got to keep or give is what I've cried, floodgates let down to mourning for the dead chances, for the end of being young, for everyone I loved who really died. I drank our one year out in brine instead of honey from the seasons of your tongue. — Marilyn Hacker

Even as I begin to realize the magnitude of what I'm doing, a thought occurs to me. Somewhere in the city of rebirth, Paul is lifting himself out of bed, staring out his window, and waiting. There are pigeons cooing on rooftops, cathedral bells tolling from towers in the distance. We are sitting here, continents apart, the same way we always did: at the edges of our mattresses, together. On the ceilings where I am going there will be saints and gods and flights of angels. Everywhere I walk there will be reminders of all that time can't touch. My heart is a bird in a cage, ruffling its wings with the ache of expectation.
In Italy, the sun is rising. — Dustin Thomason

That solar hue, that variegation of gleam and shade, made Don Fabrizio's heart ache as he stood black and stiff in a doorway: this eminently patrician room reminded him of country things; the chromatic scale was the same as that of the vast wheat fields around Donnafugata, rapt, begging pity from the tyrannous sun; in this room, too, as on his estates in mid-August, the harvest had been gathered long before, stacked elsewhere, leaving, as here, a sole reminder in the color of the stubble burned and useless now. The notes of the waltz in the warm air seemed to him but a stylization of the incessant winds harping their own sorrows on the parched surfaces, today, yesterday, tomorrow, forever and forever. The crowd of dancers, among whom he could count so many near to him in blood if not in heart, began to seem unreal, made up of that material from which are woven lapsed memories, more elusive even than the stuff of disturbing dreams. — Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa

She bowed her head, clasping her hands tightly before her upon the arm of his chair, for her heart yearned towards him, yet could not reach him, and it made her throat ache with unhappiness to meet that look of his that rested on her face without seeing it. — Georgette Heyer

After dinner Natasha went to the clavichord, at Prince Andrey's request, and began singing. Prince Andrey stood at the window, talking to the ladies, and listened to her. In the middle of a phrase, Prince Andrey ceased speaking, and felt suddenly a lump in his throat from tears, the possibility of which he had never dreamed of in himself. He looked at Natasha singing, and something new and blissful stirred in his soul. He was happy, and at the same time he was sad. He certainly had nothing to weep about, but he was ready to weep. For what? For his past love? For the little princess? For his lost illusions? For his hopes for the future? Yes, and no. The chief thing which made him ready to weep was a sudden, vivid sense of the fearful contrast between something infinitely great and illimitable existing in him, and something limited and material, which he himself was, and even she was. This contrast made his heart ache, and rejoiced him while she was singing. — Leo Tolstoy

Our surface relationships are leaving us increasingly lonely ... We ache for deeper connections as we're blinded by the spotlight of public superficial relationships. We leave someone sitting before us, waiting while we "finish one more thing" on our phone screen. But that's just it; we never seem to finish. A heart without a face looks like any other heart. It's the face to face that tells us if a heart-to-heart is real. — Beth Moore

He could have swept me into his arms, kissed my mouth in a fit of passion, and begged me to be his bride, and whatever deep thirst I had hidden in the heart of me still would not be slaked. Amazing, unfathomable man that he was, I had hoped that he could breathe life into me. It took the touch of his lips to convince me that he was only a man.
True, he stirred something in me- sweetly, tenderly, even graciously- but when his kindness brushed up against my soul, it did not begin to ease the ache of the seemingly bottomless fissure that still gaped. — Nicole Baart

She sat up, cheeks flushed and golden hair tousled. She was so beautiful that it made my soul ache. I always wished desperately that I could paint her in these moments and immortalize that look in her eyes. There was a softness in them that I rarely saw at other times, a total and complete vulnerability in someone who was normally so guarded and analytical in the rest of her life. But although I was a decent painter, capturing her on canvas was beyond my skill.
She collected her brown blouse and buttoned it up, hiding the brightness of turquoise lace with the conservative attire she liked to armor herself in. She'd done an overhaul of her bras in the last month, and though I was always sad to see them disappear, it made me happy to know they were there, those secret spots of color in her life. — Richelle Mead

I hardly dare believe it after that horrible day last summer. I have had a heart ache ever since then. But it is gone now."
"This baby will take Joy's place." Said Marilla.
"Oh, no no no Marilla. He can't, nothing can ever do that. He has his own place, my dear wee man child. But little Joy has hers, and always will have it. — L.M. Montgomery

He moved closer and cupped her face in his hands. "I love you."
Her eyes filled with tears, her expression suddenly so hopeful and vulnerable it made his heart ache. "Really?"
"Yes." He smiled softly. "Like, crazy, awful, miserable-without-you kind of love ... — Julie James

The trouble with magic was that is was messy and dangerous and filled with longing. There were too many moments that made your heart stop and ache and start again. — Karen Foxlee

The things you remember about a person when they're gone are funny. No two people will feel the same way, though usually it has to do with scent, or expression, the sound of a voice, an unusual gesture. For me, I can still see the colors of Keiko; the black of her hair against creamy pale skin, her dark blue kimono with white circles, the deep orange persimmons falling from the brown basket she carried. The ache in my heart grows larger every time I think of these colors, and how as each day passes they continue to fade from my eyes. — Gail Tsukiyama

There is an ache in my heart for the imagined beauty of a life I haven't had, from which I had been locked out, and it never goes away. — Robert Goolrick

Each time, Jane's heart banged, her skin chilled, and she clamped down on the distracting ache in her gut with a bowl of something naughty, like Cocoa Pebbles. — Shannon Hale

The night above. We two. Full moon.
I started to weep, you laughed.
Your scorn was a god, my laments
moments and doves in a chain.
The night below. We two. Crystal of pain.
You wept over great distances.
My ache was a clutch of agonies
over your sickly heart of sand.
Dawn married us on the bed,
our mouths to the frozen spout
of unstaunched blood.
The sun came through the shuttered balcony
and the coral of life opened its branches
over my shrouded heart.

- Night of Sleepless Love — Federico Garcia Lorca

I was conscious, then, of a different ache, deeper and more sharp than the feeling of bereavement that a hangover will sometimes uncover in the heart. — Michael Chabon

She is both my madness and my sanity.

She is the calm quiet eye of my storm.

She is the whisper in the maddening din.

She is a rare mix of dirty mind, exquisite beauty, curves that make your hands ache, deep heart and mischief that you want for your own.

She is peace in the shape of a woman. — Kirk Diedrich

To be fully human is to be wild. Wild is the strange pull and whispering wisdom. It's the gentle nudge and the forceful ache. It is your truth, passed down from the ancients, and the very stream of life in your blood. Wild is the soul where passion and creativity reside, and the quickening of your heart. Wild is what is real, and wild is your home. — Victoria Erickson

In all cases of heart-ache, the application of another man's disappointment draws out the pain and allays the irritation. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

I took him to the river and said "let's watch something drown," So he took a stone
and I took my necklace
and we threw it all together,
the way I always think I will get better in July. Things will change and sounds won't ache
and I gave my heart to uncertainty so many times, and so I took him to the river,
threw the necklace in the river to slowly watch it drown, or burn, or fade away
like I've done so many times. — Charlotte Eriksson

I needed her heart and mind as much as her body. I needed her, and her lack caused an ache in my chest as I drifted off to sleep. — Richelle Mead

The heart is capable of sacrifice. So is the vagina. The heart is able to forgive and repair. It can change it's shape to let us in. It can expand to let us out. So can the vagina. It can ache for us and stretch for us, die for us and bleed and bleed us into this difficult, wondrous world. So can the vagina. I was there in the room. I remeber. — Eve Ensler

Because I've lost my children, too, and I know the ache that lives inside the heart that no amount of solace or alcohol will squelch. I know what it's like to have the powers of a god and to not be able to hold the one thing that means the most to me. And if you think for one minute that I would ever serve that to another being, even Artemis, who I'd like to torture for eternity, then go ahead and call down your army on me. I would deserve whatever death they give. (Sin) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Finn was meant to find that journal. To find me. To be a salve, and perhaps even heal, a heart I'd worried was destined to ache forever. — Jessica Hawkins

When I ache to live, my mind loves to stay with the peaceful whiteness of a pigeon's care...in boundless amity.. — Munia Khan

I hold the door to the post office open for a weathered man in a wheelchair. He is gracious, thanking me. One leg is missing, and just as I notice this, I see the sticker on the back of his chair: VIETNAM VETS.

My thoughts jumble as an ache brews in my heart. I think of war and how it destroys, divides, and damages. I see the faces of those in the refugee camp and those who found their names on The List and are now in America. I want to tell this wounded soldier that I am sorry for his loss and for the abandonment he may have felt upon his return. I want to say other things, but right now I'm just honored to hold the door for him. — Alice J. Wisler

I always think the most romantic books or films are the ones where the romance doesn't happen, because it makes your heart ache so much watching it. — Natalie Portman

A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT
Stomach-ache can be a curse;
heart-ache may be even worse;
so thank Heaven on your knees
if you've got but one of these. — Piet Hein

She Blinded Me With Science.'"

"What?" Sydney asked.

"That could be our song."

She laughed outright, and I realized I hadn't heard that sound in a very long time. It somehow managed to make my heart both ache and leap. "Well," she said. "I guess that's better than 'Tainted Love. — Richelle Mead

O that I were your lover for a month or two, he murmured,
I would make that pretty heart's blood of yours ache in a fortnight. — Helen Simpson

But Mary had not come into the world to be sad or to help another to be sad. Sorrowful we may often have to be, but to indulge in sorrow is either not to know or to deny God our Saviour. True, her heart ached for Letty; and the ache immediately laid itself as close to Letty's ache as it could lie; but that was only the advance-guard of her army of salvation, the light cavalry of sympathy: the next division was help; and behind that lay patience, and strength, and hope, and faith,and joy. This last, modern teachers, having failed to regard it as a virtue, may well decline to regard as a duty; but he is a poor Christian indeed in whom joy has not at least a growing share, and Mary was not a poor Christian--at least, for the time she had been learning, and as Christians go in the present aeon of their history. — George MacDonald

When I am happy I am like a cat, sleek and purring, quite useless. It is when I am unhappy, with an ache perhaps in my heart, that I do my finest work. — Barbara La Marr

But once in a great while he remembered that he had felt pain, a terrible ache in his heart, and he swore he would never let himself feel love for a human again. — Susan Cooper

Your arms ache to hold someone
you move in slow motion from one hug to the next
so you won't jostle the warm feeling off your shoulders
before the next hug comes your way.
Your heart feels hollow
that emptiness screams like an addiction to be filled
even if it means doing hurtful, selfish things
to get a fix.
"I understand,"
I tell him. "Because
I've been lonely, too. — Sarah Tregay

He doesn't move.

Please, I beg him inwardly.

Please go up to bed.

It's hard enough to look at his face each day and not feel heartbreak. I can't be close to him right now. I'm afraid I'll give in and kiss him again. The way his hard body had aligned so perfectly with mine is burned in my consciousness. I'll be trying not to remember that for weeks.

I wait, and I ache.

Finally the door clicks open. I hear him exit the car. When the door slams shut, I feel it like a sledgehammer to the heart.

Don't look, I coach myself.

But my self-control isn't infinite. His fair hair glints under the streetlight as his long legs eat up the walkway in just a few paces. Seeing him walk away from me splinters something inside me. — Sarina Bowen

The Author's Way of sending forth his Second Part of the Pilgrim. Some things are of that nature as to make One's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache. — John Bunyan

My breath catches, responding to an unfamiliar pull in my chest, an ache in my soul. I shouldn't miss him, but I do; this boy who had every right to pull that trigger, and instead threw himself between me and death. This boy, the only one who believes I'm not what they say I am what I believed I was; a soldier without a soul, a girl with no heart to break. He's the only one who's proved me wrong. — Amie Kaufman

At first I did not love you, Jude; that I own. When I first knew you I merely wanted you to love me. I did not exactly flirt with you; but that inborn craving which undermines some women's morals almost more than unbridled passion
the craving to attract and captivate, regardless of the injury it may do the man
was in me; and when I found I had caught you, I was frightened. And then
I don't know how it was
I couldn't bear to let you go
possibly to Arabella again
and so I got to love you, Jude. But you see, however fondly it ended, it began in the selfish and cruel wish to make your heart ache for me without letting mine ache for you. — Thomas Hardy

He swore by all that he ever had loved and reverenced that he would try, try with all his might in the short time that might remain to him ... he would forget himself, he would put his own pain and chagrin and disappointment, his own feeling of defeat and uselessness, his own craving for love and intellectual companionship in the background, and he would see if the more than six feet of bone and muscle that contained his being could do any small service that might come his way for God and his fellow man before he went. Maybe if he could accomplish some little thing, something that would ease the ache of even one heart that ached as his was aching at that minute, just maybe that knowledge would be the secret that he might carry in his breast that would set the stamp of an indelible smile on his face, so that even a child could discern the majesty of the impulse and he would not be ashamed when the end came. — Gene Stratton-Porter

I should be glad of loneliness And hours that go on broken wings,A thirsty body, a tired heart And the unchanging ache of things,If I could make a single song As lovely and as full of light,As hushed and brief as a falling star On a winter night. — Sara Teasdale

Throughout the ordeal, I learned that getting mad was easier than being sad. Anger was something I could control. I could settle into an easy rhythm of blame and hate. Focus my energy on something than the ache in my heart. — Emily Giffin

Then you agree that you should keep me." With the smug satisfaction of an argument won, he propped his shoulder against the stall door. Her eyes picked him over as if he were a carved goose on a table. "Aye, I'll have to either keep you ... or kill you." "I vote for keeping me." A glint of humor shone in her eyes. "And I shall so long as you behave yourself." "And if I don't behave? If I try to escape?" "I'll hunt you down and kill you." The conviction in her voice chilled him, and yet he felt something else, an ache of pity that a wonderful creature like Caitlin MacBride should be compelled to have the heart of a murderer. "Then you leave me no alternative," he said lightly. "I shall stay. Think of it, Cait, we'll grow old together. We'll walk on the strand and watch the sunset, and you'll sing songs to me in that lovely voice of yours. — Susan Wiggs

There was an ache in his heart like the farewell to a dear woman; there was a vague sorrow in him like the despair of autumn. He walked past the restaurants he used to smell with interest, and no appetite was aroused in him. He walked by Madam Zuca's great establishment, and exchanged no obscene jests with the girls in the windows. Back to the wharf he went. He leaned over the rail and looked into the deep, deep water. Do you know, Danny, how the wine of your life is pouring into the fruit jars of the gods? Do you see the procession of your days in the oily water among the piles? He remained motionless, staring down. — John Steinbeck

Many roads to take some to joy some to heart ache — Kate Winslet

My heart would swell without warning, and tremble, and lurch with a stab of pain. I would try clamping my eyes shut and gritting my teeth, and waiting for it to pass. And it would pass
but slowly, taking its own time, and leaving a dull ache behind. — Haruki Murakami

He's incredibly perfect in his very nature of existing. He's perfect in his uniqueness. He burns so bright. So bright at times he hurts my eyes. Makes my heart ache from his grace. — Sarah Noffke

Because you see ... " He cradled Alec's face between his hands. "I'm in love with you, Alec. The kind of love that not only makes my balls ache, but that makes my chest so tight sometimes I think I can't breathe. The kind that makes my skin tingle and my heart pound and my knees weak whenever I'm around you. I'm deeply ... powerfully ... unequivocally in love with you. — M.L. Rhodes

And wished with all her heart that she wasn't so tired, wished that a broken wrist would radiate violent pain instead of this strange numbing ache that was exhausting her by its subtlety and consistency. — Dorothy Gilman

I'll sometimes feel a warmth or ache in my chest and think that it's my heart shaking off it's torpor. I hear it murmuring; maybe someday it will shout. — Marc Barasch

Wracking sobs rip from the innermost chamber of my heart, and I give into them, allowing them to fully take over. Pain lances me on all sides, and I bury my head in my knees, giving in to the heartache.
I cry for my parents.
For my lost life.
For the threat that Addison poses, scaring me in ways it shouldn't.
For a boy I can't have and shouldn't want.
For the never-ending gut-wrenching hollow ache in my chest and the soul-crushing loneliness I feel. — Siobhan Davis

Under every burden, ... God will slip His hand. Every gulf of sorrow, ... His great love has spanned, Into every heart-ache, ... God will our His balm: Ease the pain and anguish, ... bring a blessed calm. — Frances J Roberts

Heart broken-he felt a deep ache in his chest, like that of a sore muscle, and each beat of his heart pained him — Christopher Paolini

I want to be loved, honestly and truly loved, for who I am. And I want to love a woman with all my heart for all my life. I want to ache for her mind, for her body, for her companionship. — Kerrelyn Sparks

She brushed the tears from their faces and sang them a melancholy lullaby. Her obvious devotion to her daughters pulled at my heart strings, making my chest ache with longing for my own mother. — A.B. Shepherd

Love is the spice of life!" Aunt Lydia picked up her glass and took a long drink before setting it down again. "Did it end in heartache, dear?" "Well, yes ... but it was the good kind of heart ache, Aunt Lydia. The kind where you'll always think fondly of each other, even though you know your love could never be." My aunt squealed with delight. "Ooh, I just love stories that end that way! Those happy, sappy endings in romance novels aren't realistic at all. But if you can gaze up at the stars at night and think fondly of your lost love, then it's worth falling in love and losing him." "You're absolutely right. — Lynn Austin

His chest, heaving harder this time. His words, almost gasping this time. "You destroy me."
I am falling to pieces in his arms.
My fists are full of unlucky pennies and my heart is a jukebox demanding a few nickels and my head is flipping quarters heads or tails heads or tails heads or tails heads or tails
"Juliette," he says, and he mouths the name, barely speaking at all, and he's pouring molten lava into my limbs and I never even knew I could melt straight to death.
"I want you," he says. He says "I want all of you. I want you inside and out and catching your breath and aching for me like I ache for you." He says it like it's a lit cigarette lodged in his throat, like he wants to dip me in warm honey and he says "It's never been a secret. I've never tried to hide that from you. I've never pretended I wanted anything less. — Tahereh Mafi

The heart / That laughs must ache. — Georgiana Goddard King