I Loved You But You Didn't Love Me Quotes & Sayings

Listen to me. I will spill my insides for you once only. We were three - I am the green, the
growing, the day. I loved the moon, the silver night, and he loved the sunshine, fierce and hot, and she
loved me because the sun must love the day. And the sun and I stood in a valley of stone and faced
death, because we wanted to spare the night, who had suffered a thousand deaths already, and we didn't
want him to bleed any more. But he would not allow it. He swooped from the sky and clenched death
in both hands, and we wore his blood like skin. — Amy Lane

They'd lied to me and betrayed me, leaving jagged edges where all my trust had been, and I didn't like or respect or admire them any more, but still I loved them. I had no choice. I understood that, perfectly, standing in the white wilderness of snow. You can't kill love. You can't even kill it with hate. You can kill in-love, and loving, and even loveliness. You can kill them all, or numb them into dense, leaden regret, but you can't kill love itself. Love is the passionate search for a truth other than your own; and once you feel it, honestly and completely, love is forever. Every act of love, every moment of the heart reaching out, is a part of the universal good: it's a part of God, or what we call God, and it can never die. — Gregory David Roberts

I never wanted to be an actor. My dad was an actor, and he never brought joy home, so I didn't view it as something that I would want to do. But I got fired as a secretary, and then I started studying, I started doing it just to earn money. And it took me a long time to learn to love it. And what I loved was telling a story. I tried to avoid making plays or films that weren't telling a story that I felt was important. I discovered in the process that it makes you more empathic because you have to enter someone else's reality and learn to see through many other people's eyes. — Jane Fonda

Victor didn't entirely understand my love for Rory, but he couldn't disagree that Rory was probably the best raccoon corpse that anyone had ever loved. Rory's tiny arms perpetually reached out as if to say, "OHMYGOD, YOU ARE MY FAVORITE. PERSON. EVER. PLEASE LET ME CHEW YOUR FACE OFF WITH MY LOVE." Whenever I'd accomplished a particularly impossible goal (like remembering to refill my ADD meds even though I have ADD and was out of ADD meds) Rory was always there, eternally offering supportive high fives because he understood the value of celebrating the small victories. — Jenny Lawson

We get crazy when we can't make things be like the world tells us they are". She looked back out the window. "It was that way for me and your brother, I think. I mean, how could I have loved him that last year? I didn't even know who he was. He was way more attracted to drugs and bikers and that whole lifestyle than he was to me. But somebody told me that if you really loved somebody,you stayed with him no matter what. You had to fight for him." She laughe. "Hell, I was convinced. — Chris Crutcher

I love you, Quade," she says, once the kiss is done and with his warmth still in her. "Always have."
"See, I knew - "
She cracks him one on the arm before he can finish. It can't always be kisses and dancing, after all. Sometimes you've got to keep things zesty. Sharp. Tough, like love is. She's pretty sure her love for him is tough all right.
It let her run to him, after all.
"Okay, maybe I didn't know. But I knew this much - I've loved you since the first day you punched me in the face. And I'll love you 'til the last. — Charlotte Stein

I think I fell in love with you that amazing night on the kitchen floor. Or maybe it was the evening you stepped up and set my arm." Testing things, he reached for her hand, and, to his joy, she glared, but she let him take it. "Or maybe the night I knew I loved you was when I kissed you under the mistletoe on Christmas Eve. It's hard to say because I look at you now and it seems to me there's never been a time when I didn't love you. — Maggie Osborne

"Oh, you want too much!" she cried to Gatsby. "I love you now-isn't that enough? I can't help what's past." She began to sob helplessly. "I did love him once-but I loved you too."
Gatsby's eyes opened and closed.
"You loved me too?" he repeated.
"Even that's a lie," said Tom savagely. "She didn't know you were alive. Why-there're things between Daisy and me that you'll never know, things that neither of us can ever forget." — F Scott Fitzgerald

Love never fails, Mila. That's what your parents believed. And because of you, it's what I believe now, too. You stuck by me and loved me when I didn't deserve it. All I want is a chance to prove that I can be worthy of it. Your parents were sort of fucked up in their own way, like me, and they never got the help that they needed. But I will. I promise. I will put the work in. I will learn how to cope with painful things and I will never leave you again. Just tell me that you'll stay with me. — Courtney Cole

So Dad was cured?" I don't know why I feel so disappointed. I didn't even remember him; he died of cancer when I was one.
"He was." A muscle twitches in my mom's jaw. "But there were times I felt ... There were times it seemed as though he could still feel it, just for a second. Maybe I only imagined it. It doesn't matter. I loved him anyway. He was very good to me."
reminds me that she is not just my mother, but a woman who has fought her whole life for something she has never truly experienced.
My dad was cured. And you can't love, not fully, unless you are loved in return.
It makes me ache for her, a feeling I hate and am somehow ashamed of. — Lauren Oliver

Now give me a kiss, say you love me and off you go."
"Sure, Aunt Lu," I said, and I gave her the kiss she wanted. Then I ran out and caught my bus. I didn't say I loved her. I guess I did. But asking someone to say they love you
and she always asked
is like buying yourself a birthday present. It's more than likely exactly what you want. But it must make you feel awfully sad to get it. — Avi

Robin didn't like that idea very much-Jules spending time with Adam? "I get jealousy too, you know. You used to be in love with him."

Jules turned his head to look at him. "That was before I knew what love really was". He smiled. "When I met you, Robin, God.... I had to redefine everything. You know, there was this country song my mother really liked. It used to annoy me, I was in my technopop phase, but lately I just... I find myself thinking about the lyrics all the time. That was a river, this is the ocean.... I thought I loved Adam, and I did, but... it wasn't even close to this incredible ocean that I feel for you". — Suzanne Brockmann

A few minutes after discovering we had a goal but no plan, Brent was laughing heartily at a pathetic joke I had made. It reminded me of the first
day on campus when I had thought his laughter sounded like a melody. It did now, even more so. It was music, beautiful, in a manly way, like a
sensual, slow jazz. I loved jazz.
"Jazz, huh?" Brent asked, his voice suddenly husky.
"Uh ... what?"
"My laugh reminds you of jazz? Is there anything about me you don't find attractive?" He rubbed his hand over his lips trying to cover his smirk.
"So tell me, how much do you love jazz?"
I'm sure my face was pinker than the inside of a watermelon. "I didn't say any of that."
"You didn't have to say it, Yara, I could hear it." Brent tapped the side of his head. "I can hear your thoughts."
"You're not serious."
"Oh, but I am," he said, completely straight-faced. — Lani Woodland

You're right. I'm shit scared of taking the risk of feeling the fullness of how much I love you."
His mouth stopped working, his body went still, except his hips pressed into mine.
Then his head came up and I felt his eyes on me in the dark but he didn't say a word.
So I did.
"I've never loved anyone the way I love you."
"Fuck me," he murmured. — Kristen Ashley

We women, me and you. Tell me something real. Don't just say I'm grown and ought to know. I don't. I'm fifty and I don't know nothing. What about it? Do I stay with him? I want to, I think. I want ... well, I didn't always ... now I want. I want some fat in this life."
"Wake up. Fat or lean, you got just one. This is it."
"You don't know either, do you?"
"I know enough to know how to behave."
"Is that it? Is that all it is?"
"Is that all what is?"
"Oh shoot! Where the grown people? Is it us?"
"Oh, Mama." Alice Manfred blurted it out and then covered her mouth.
Violet had the same thought: Mama. Mama? Is this where you got to and couldn't do it no more? The place of shade without trees where you know you are not and never again will be loved by anybody who can choose to do it? Where everything is over but the talking?
- Violet Trace and Alice Manfred — Toni Morrison

He sighed. "You've chosen poorly, you know. When we return to England you'll be celebrated, just as I will be. If you've decided to abandon me, you might have netted someone titled, someone with enough wealth to see you esteemed and me able to continue my botanical studies. That would have been the aim of a dutiful daughter."
"I'm not abandoning you, and I chose Shaw. You're the one who declined to attend your daughter's wedding."
"You never used to speak to me like this. A dutiful child would never have accepted a proposal from the first man who asked, simply because he did ask."
"He didn't propose to me. I proposed to him."
Finally he looked more surprised than angry and frustrated. "You proposed to him?"
"Yes, because I didn't think he believed me when I said that I loved him. I can hardly blame him, since I had to think about it for an entire day after he said it to me, but I do love him. More than I can articulate to you. — Suzanne Enoch

I love you. Don't leave me. But I couldn't speak. Not with words. So I told her the story of my love with the rest of me. With my lips and my hands. With a touch and a sigh. I loved her, and I didn't know if I could keep her. But I would try. — Staci Hart

Sister, why do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Cage the animals at night?"
"Well ... " She looked up and out through the barred window before answering me."We don't want to, Jennings, but we have to. You see, the animals that are given to us we have to take care of. If we didn't cage them up in one place, we might lose them, they might get hurt or damaged. It's not the best thing, but it's the only way we have to take care of them."
"But if somebody loved one them," I asked, "wouldn't it be a good idea to let them have one? To keep, I mean?"
"Yes, it would be. But not everyone would love them and take care of them as you would. I wish I could give them all away tomorrow." She looked at me. There were tears in her eyes. "But I can't. My heart would break if I saw just one of those animals lying by the wayside uncared for, unloved. No, Jennings. It's better if we keep them together. — Jennings Michael Burch

By my love for you. I realized I loved you more than life itself, and I would rather give myself into your power than live without you. Nothing the magic could do to me could be worse than living without you. I was willing to give it all over to you. I offered the power everything I have. All of my love for you. Once I realized how much I loved you, I was willing to be yours on any terms. I understood that there could be nothing for the magic to harm. I'm already devoted to you; it didn't need to change me. I was protected, because I have already been untouched by your love. I had utter faith that you felt the same, and had no fear of what would happen. Had I had any doubt, the magic would have latched on to that crack and taken me, but I had no doubt. My love for you is smooth and seamless. My love for you protected me from the magic. — Terry Goodkind

She puts her hands on either side of my face, and the room falls away. I have never gotten so lost in a kiss before.
And then, the space between us explodes. My heart keeps missing beats and my hands cannot bring her close enough to me. I taste her and realize I have been starving.
I have loved before, but it didn't feel like this.
I have kissed before, but it didn't burn me alive.
Maybe it lasts a minute, and maybe it's an hour. All I know is that kiss, and how soft her skin is when it brushes against mine, and that even if I did not know it until now, I have been waiting for this person forever. — Jodi Picoult

First, you're sorry for invading my privacy for years, years before I even knew you existed. Second, you're sorry for kidnapping me, isolating, controlling me, and manipulating me. Third, you're sorry for lying to me, pretending you cared and oh yearh, marrying me. Fourth, listen carefully Tony, this is the big one ... you're sorry for framing me for attempted murder, resulting in incarceration in a federal penitentiary."
"I am deeply sorry for one and four. I did provide you with an alternative destination for number four. I am not proud of two, but three would never have happened without it. I am not, and never will be sorry for three. And, for the record, I never lied about or pretended to love you. I didn't realize it at first, but I have loved you since before you knew my name. And, you forgot our divorce. I am sincerely sorry for that also. — Aleatha Romig

I felt sorry for Mary-Emma and all she was going through, every day waking up to something new. Though maybe that was what childhood was. But I couldn't quite recall that being the case for me. And perhaps she would grow up with a sense that incompetence was all around here, and it was entirely possible I would be instrumental in that. She would grow up with love, but no sense that the people who loved her knew what they were doing - the opposite of my childhood - and so she would become suspicious of people, suspicious of love and the worth of it. Which in the end, well, would be a lot like me. So perhaps it didn't matter what happened to you as a girl: you ended up the same. — Lorrie Moore

I thought everything I knew about you might have been a lie, but since meeting him and your parents, I've realized that the parts of you I knew weren't untrue; they were only part-truths. There were lots of things about you that I didn't know, and learning those things has actually been comforting in a way. They make me feel closer to you. And I can see that actually there's one real truth, and that is you loved me enough to do anything it took to protect me. I think that's something I've known my whole life. I'm thankful for it. — Jennifer Brown

He never told me that he loved me."
"Some men don't," she says. "Some men say it all the time and don't mean it."
I recognize myself in the latter category, not with Demetri but with one of his predecessors. I sometimes said "I love you" to Josh because I was afraid I didn't; toward the end, I hardly said it at all, and when I did I meant, I WISH I LOVED YOU. — Melissa Bank

I just don't understand why you're trying so hard. It was really a long time ago."
"Because, when I was nineteen years old, I fell in love with a girl who changed my life by showing me that even the darkest nights still had stars and it didn't matter one bit that you had to lie in the weeds to see them. We were kids and I barely knew her, but I loved her. I should have been there while she grew up, but I was a fool. Now, I have the woman back and I have every intention of making her fall in love with me again, and this time ...I'm never letting go. — Aly Martinez

But you said you did not love our father. How can you have faith in him if you didn't love him?"
"Maybe that's the reason," Adam said slowly, feeling his way. "Maybe if I had loved him I would have been jealous of him. You were. Maybe - maybe love makes you suspicious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure - never sure of her because you aren't sure of yourself? I can see it pretty clearly. I can see how you loved him and what it did to you. I did not love him. Maybe he loved me. He tested me and hurt me and punished me and finally he sent me out like a sacrifice, maybe to make up for something. But he did not love you, and so he had faith in you. Maybe - why, maybe it's a kind of reverse. — John Steinbeck

Do you think I could keep bees one day?" I asked. August said, "Didn't you tell me this past week one of the things you loved was bees and honey? Now, if that's so, you'll be a fine beekeeper. Actually, you can be bad at something, Lily, but if you love doing it, that will be enough." The — Sue Monk Kidd

Yes, I lay in my grave. But if you lie in a grave long enough, you get accustomed to it and you don't want to part from it. He had given me a pill of cyanide, He and his wife and their son also carried such pills. We all lived with death, and I want you to know that one can fall in love with death. Whoever has loved death cannot love anything else any more. When the liberation came and they told me to leave, I didn't want to go. I clung to the threshold like an ox being dragged to the slaughter. ("Hanka") — Isaac Bashevis Singer

Christopher forced her to look back at him. "Loved?" he asked hoarsely. "Past tense?"
"Present tense," she managed to say.
"You told me to find you."
"I didn't mean to send you that note."
"But you did. You wanted me."
"Yes." More tears escaped her stinging eyes. He bent and pressed his mouth to them, tasting the salt of grief.
Those gray eyes looked into hers, no longer bright as hellfrost, but soft as smoke. "I love you, Beatrix."
Maybe she was capable of swooning after all. — Lisa Kleypas

Desire is simple," he said. "Desire is something even a machine can understand." There was a stillness in the air that mirrored the stillness of his body. "But when I desired you I began to love you. You were the first being I ever loved. I didn't know it, of course. I had no idea what it meant, no idea what I was feeling. Love was never something I was supposed to experience. I don't think I was supposed to know desire, either, but she never expected me to meet you." He laughed against her skin. "Later, after your father ... when he took out those restrictions, I was finally able to understand the complexities of love. Even if I didn't want to. At first. — Cassandra Rose Clarke

didn't get it back then. I thought . . . I thought choosing him meant you didn't love me. I thought because we didn't work out, it meant we were a failure or a mistake. But I understand it now. Because I love her. I love her so much I can't see straight. But it doesn't change how I felt about you or how thankful I am to have loved you once. It's just . . ." "I'm the past. And she's the present." "Yeah," he says, relieved that I've put it into words for him, that he doesn't have to try to find them himself. "That's exactly it." I — Taylor Jenkins Reid

My father showed me so much love. He showed my brother so much love. He just, he had a rough life. You know, he grew up in a boys home in the Bronx. He didn't really know his own family. So I couldn't hold it against him that he didn't know how to parent. He didn't know how to be the perfect husband. But he loved as much as he could. — Hope Solo

I've been in love with you since you helped me bury that spider in my garden, and you sang with me like we were singing "Amazing Grace" instead of "The Itsy, Bitsy Spider." I've loved you since you quoted Hamlet like you understood him, since you said you loved ferris wheels more than roller coasters because life shouldn't be lived at full speed, but in anticipation and appreciation. I read and re-read your letters to Rita because I felt like you'd opened up a little window into your soul, and the light was pouring out with every word. They weren't even for me, but it didn't matter. I loved every word, every thought, and I loved you ... so much. — Amy Harmon

Lily, if you left this earth and left me behind, I'd be miserable. I probably wouldn't want to live. But you know what? If you left me with our baby girl, I'd spend my whole life raising her the best I could. Making sure I did right by her and by you. Making sure that everything I did would make you happy and proud of me. You'd leave this earth knowing that I would give our children everything. You would have no doubt about that. Not doing that, not taking care of the babies we made together, would mean that I didn't love you, that you didn't mean the world to me. Because if something means that much to you, then it means that much to me. If I were him, I'd grab hold of anything that reminded me of the woman I loved. — Alexa Riley

Whenever I heard it, whoever said it to me, it felt the same. Like it didn't really mean anything. Because they weren't saying it about the real me.
But what if they were? What if everyone who ever said they loved you meant it?
How could they? How could any of them have ever meant it when no one but you has ever really known the real me? — Bella Andre

I love you, he said flatly. I
love
you. Shall I elaborate? I have loved you. I do love you. I will love you. I didn't want to love you. I tried not to love you. I will undoubtably regret loving you, but
God help me
I love you
so much. — Elizabeth Peters

This was our house. Mine and hers. I know she'd sneak over to the rectory every once in a while and let you wail on her for a night. But I got her the rest of the time. I cooked her breakfast. I answered her fan mail. I put her to bed when she fell asleep at her desk writing. I rubbed her back when she was sore from overworking herself. And when she got all wrought up over you, it was me she cried on. No, she and I never had sex. That's true. But we had love, real love that didn't take anything out of us, that didn't bruise us or break us. I loved her without hurting her. You asked me if I, a virgin, could teach her what sex should be? No, course not. Hell no. But at least I can teach her what love should be like. And she knows it too. — Tiffany Reisz

I really am sorry, Micky, for what it's worth. You were the greatest thing that ever happened to me. You were my life. I mean, I know I didn't show that to you, and I'll forever hate myself for that. But you need to know, I loved you so fucking much. I still love you. Whenever I look at my future, it was always you... When I thought about my life... You were the one walking down the aisle towards me, raising our kids. I always smiled to myself when I thought about it, that it was you that was going to be there for me every night, when I got home from work, you in your study, writing your books. A few kids, a decent house. It was perfect in my mind. You were perfect. You are perfect and I threw it all away, because I'm such a fucking asshole, and I can't take it back. I can't fucking take it back, and I can't have you back, and all of this... this life I have, none of this shit is worth it, not without you. — Jay McLean

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

Coupla weeks ago, you gave me a fuckin' sweet nightie and words I loved hearing."
I felt my entire body go still as I held his eyes.
"Forgot to mention I feel the same," he stated and my insides hollowed out.
"What?" I breathed.
"Put down the rice and come here, baby, I wanna tell you I love you when you're in my
arms."
I didn't move. I stared at him, my internal organs gone but still, my body managed to
produce tears which gathered in my eyes and then promptly and silently slid down my
cheeks. — Kristen Ashley

You probably didn't hear me, but I told you I loved you that night. I couldn't seem to stop it from slipping out. Then you cried for Denny, and I wanted to die again. — S.C. Stephens

You know the troubles I've had with my two older children. I can't understand why it turned out so badly. I tried to give them everything. I loved them and tried to keep them near me, even when they didn't return my love. Well, I couldn't make them love me, but they could have shown some respect. I couldn't insist on love, but I could insist on respect. — Joan Crawford

I smiled and looked at her- there she was with such a genuine grin and twinkle in her eyes. I kissed my mother on her forehead and took a long look in to her hazel eyes. I wondered when I would have the next chance to see her as I whispered, 'I love you." Mother didn't respond. She didn't look well- she had a tint of green and yellow to her skin and her thinning hair was a dull salt and pepper color, cut extra short and clinging to her scalp. She had no makeup on, which told me she just had no more energy.

I began to walk out of her room and turned to look at her. I wanted to run up to her, shake her, and beg her to tell me she loved me and was proud of me. But when I looked at her, she was already sleeping. — Jori Nunes

Austin stood. "All right, I will." He walked to the door and stopped, his hand on the latch. He gazed back over his shoulder. "That woman you love ... Do I know her?"
Houston forced himself to meet his brother's gaze. The boy only knew one woman, if he didn't count the whores in Dusty Flats. "Yeah, you do."
"She never left your side, not for one minute."
"She should have."
"Well, I'm not learned in these matters, but I'd like to think if a woman ever loved me as much as that one loves you ... I'd crawl through hell to be by her side. — Lorraine Heath

A maiden was imprisoned in a stone tower. She loved a lord. Why? Ask the wind and the stars, ask the god of life; for no one else knows these things. And the lord was her friend and her lover; but time passed, and one fine day he saw someone else and his heart turned away. As a youth he loved the maiden. Often he called her his bliss and his dove, and her embrace was hot and heaving. He said, Give me your heart! And she did so. He said, May I ask you for something, my love? And she answered, in raptures, Yes. She gave him all, and yet he never thanked her. The other one he loved like a slave, like a madman and a beggar. Why? Ask the dust on the road and the falling leaves, ask life's mysterious god; for no one else knows these things. She gave him nothing, no, nothing did she give him, and yet he thanked her. She said, Give me your peace and your sanity. And he only grieved that she didn't ask for his life. And the maiden was put in the tower. . . . — Knut Hamsun

That was a wonderful period in my life. I mean, I didn't become an artist, but somebody let me do something I loved. What a luxury, to do something you love to do. — Amy Tan

Valerie, I love you so much. I wanted you to have a normal
childhood - so I lived a double life. Hiding in plain
sight. Living modestly." He began to pace the room, the
words tumbling out of him. "I tried to keep it up, but I've
been so disrespected. Even by my own wife. I couldn't do it
anymore. I've settled for far less than I deserved, and I just
couldn't do it anymore. I decided it was time to leave for
the city....For richer hunting grounds." Cesaire was snarling
now, a scary, powerful force. Valerie felt herself being
drawn to it....
She took a deep, steadying breath. It was not just fear
that she felt. What she felt was so much more complex
than that, something she couldn't understand. "Then why
didn't you just go?"
"Because I loved you girls, and I wanted you to come
with me. To share the wealth."
"But you had to wait until the blood moon. — Sarah Blakley-Cartwright

You think I don't know pain?" Puck shook his head at me. "Or loss? I've been around a lot longer than you, prince! I know what love is, and I've lost
my fair share, too. Just because we have a different way of handling it, doesn't mean I don't have scars of my own."
"Name one," I scoffed. "Give me one instance where you haven't - "
"Meghan Chase!" Puck roared, startling me into silence. I blinked, and he sneered at me. "Yeah, your highness. I know what loss is. I've loved that
girl since before she knew me. But I waited. I waited because I didn't want to lie about who I was. I wanted her to know the truth before anything else.
So I waited, and I did my job. For years, I protected her, biding my time, until the day she went into the Nevernever after her brother. And then you
came along. And I saw how she looked at you. And for the first time, I wanted to kill you as much as you wanted to kill me. — Julie Kagawa

If I could be anything in this world I would be rare. So rare that the people I loved never forgot me or ever found anything to compare me to. I was never a type, but the only type
the person you couldn't throw away because you would never be able to describe the mystery of something that didn't fit this world. — Shannon L. Alder

Empty Spaces

I wanted to feel less.
To not be burdened by emotion,
To not feel sadness,
To not know loss.
I envied the inanimate,
The trees that stand proudly in winter,
Not missing their leaves.
I wanted to be weightless,
To not experience limitation.
I didn't want time to pass,
The blur of days, months, years.
It moved too quickly,
I wanted to grasp on,
Hold it.
It eluded me,
Intangible,
Like light.
I wanted to preserve life before you were gone.
I didn't want to know grief.

But the pain kept me connected.
It meant that I loved you,
It meant that I would always be a little broken,
It meant that our love filled all of the empty spaces.
It meant that you would be with me... forever. — Jacqueline Simon Gunn

We must say to ourselves something like this: 'Well, when Jesus looked down from the cross, he didn't think "I am giving myself to you because you are so attractive to me." No, he was in agony, and he looked down at us - denying him, abandoning him, and betraying him - and in the greatest act of love in history, he STAYED. He said, "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing." He loved us, not because we were lovely to him, but to make us lovely. That is why I am going to love my spouse.' Speak to your heart like that, and then fulfill the promises you made on your wedding day. — Timothy Keller

She stared up at him, and her eyes were so large they looked like blue mint candies. 'I get to stay?'
'You're damn right you're staying, and I don't want to hear another word of disrespect.' His voice broke. 'I'm your father, and you damn well better love me the same way I love you, or you'll be sorry.'
The next thing he knew, he was grabbing her, and she was grabbing him, and all the bozos coming down the jerway trying to get past them were jabbing them with bags and briefcases, but he didn't care. He was holding tight to this daughter he loved so desperately, and he wasn't ever going to let her go. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Do you love me?" James asked suddenly
"Yes. I do." I didn't even have to think about it. It was so freeing
"I love you, too," he replied. "I've never said that to anyone before."
It was so hard to believe. "Really?"
He grinned and gazed out the window. "Well, except my first motorcycle, Ramona. But she was a Ducati, so you can blame me. In fact, I think I might have loved her more than I love you."
I punched James in the spot between his chest and shoulder. — James Patterson

I have friends who have children, and they have told me how remarkable it is to have a new life that is a piece of your own flesh anf blood. But I
"
"I realized that I didn't love her because she was a piece of me, I loved her because she was a piece of you. — Julia Quinn

I didn't know what to say, but my heart was racing as he slid his hands down to mine. He placed them on his chest, right above his heart. "I have hope," he said, his gaze never leaving mine. "I have hope because I love you-I've been in love with you, Avery. Probably before I even realized that I was."
"You loved me?"
Cam dropped his forehead to mine and his chest rose sharply under my hands. "I love you."
My heart stuttered. "You love me?"
"Yes, sweetheart. — J. Lynn

I fell in love with you in a hurry, like you were going somewhere fast - which you did. You came and went like an earthquake, like some sort of eclipse. I've spent hours, days, months, years missing you. But then something strange happened, and now I can't remember why I ever loved you at all. You didn't deserve it. I should have loved me more. — Christina Hart

what i miss most is how you loved me. but what i didn't know was how you loved me had so much to do with the person i was. it was a reflection of everything i gave you. coming back to me. how did i not see that. how. did i sit here soaking in the idea that no one else would love me that way. when it was i that taught you. when it was i that showed you how to fill. the way i needed to be filled. how cruel i was to myself. giving you credit for my warmth simply because you had felt it. thinking it was you who gave me strength. wit. beauty. simply because you recognized it. as if i was already not these things before i met you. as if i did not remain all these things after you left. — Rupi Kaur

I tell you this because you must understand, no matter the point of our talk, that I didn't always have things, but I had people
I always had people. I had a mother and father who I would match against any other. I had a brother who looked out for me all through college. I had The Mecca that directed me. I had friends who would leap in front of a bus for me. You need to know that I was loved, that whatever my lack of religious feeling, I have always loved my people and that broad love is directly related to the specific love I feel for you. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Remember that day you said you loved me? Remember that? See, you could do that because you're basically a sane person, who grew up in a loving, sane family. You could take a risk like that. But in my family we didn't go around saying we loved each other. We went around screaming at each other. So what do I do, when you say you love me? I go and undermine it. — Jeffrey Eugenides

I hit you. Won't that make you go away? What else can I do?" he snarled. He'd fallen back on his old standby, anger.
"I'm not going away, Cole, so maybe we can cut out the assaults in the future. You don't want me to go away. I know that. You love me, Cole. That's the feeling that makes you so angry." She'd sighed and looked at the ceiling. "You don't know what to do with it, because the people you've loved in the past caused you pain. That's what you think love is. Pain."
She'd looked at his face until he met her eyes. They were still green.
"But, Cole, I love you. Have I hurt you? Ever?"
Cole had to shake his head. She hadn't. Not once.
"I'm showing you what to do with love, Cole." She stood and held out her arms.
A hug. A simple hug he didn't have to earn by throwing a chair. Human contact that wasn't required because he was trying to hurt someone. She still trusted him. She still saw something in him. — Debra Anastasia

He didn't say anything, which daunted her for a moment, but then she saw that his eyes were warm. So she said, tentatively:
"You came for me."
"Yes."
"And took care of me when I was ill."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I love you."
Without moving a muscle, she let his words sink in. Reverberate. Settle in her bones. Was this much happiness even possible? Joy so great one couldn't even smile?
"Say it again."
"I love you."
"Again."
"I love you, Livia. I've loved you for weeks - for months - quite possibly from the moment I met you. But it's taken me far too long to understand that. Understand myself."
"Can you say it one more time?"
"Yes. I'll be saying it every day for the rest of my life, if you'll let me. I love you. — Lisa Berne

Don't cry."
"How can I not?" I asked him. "You just said you loved me."
"Well, why else did you think all of this was happening?" He set the book aside to wrap his arms around me. "The Furies wouldn't be trying to kill you if I didn't love you."
"I didn't know," I said. Tears were trickling down my cheeks, but I did nothing to try to stop them. His shirt was absorving most of them. "You never said anything about it. Every time I saw you, you just acted so ... wild."
"How was I supposed to act?" he asked. "You kept doing things like throwing tea in my face. — Meg Cabot

I loved you, I love you now, but I'll be able to go on. I know that I can. You taught me that. Not being with you is far from my dream, but like our hearts, dreams can be broken and repaired again. It's hard for me not to wonder if I scared you away with all these letters. I hope not. I hope it just made you see how beautiful and amazing you are. I guess I'm realizing now that I just want you to be happy and safe. That's the most I can hope for now. I brought some of your boxes here but I didn't open — Renee Carlino

It seems to me like this. It's not a terrible thing - I mean, it may be terrible, but it's not damaging, it's not poisoning, to do something one wants. It's not bad to say: My work is not what I really want, I'm capable of doing something bigger. Or I'm a person who needs love, and I'm doing without it. What's terrible is to pretend that the second rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better, It would be very bad i I said, out of guilt or something: I loved Janet's father, when i know quite well I didn't. Or for your mother to say: I loved Richard. Or I'm doing work I love ... — Doris Lessing

You loved me."
It wasn't a question, but he answered it readily. "I do. More than life. My heart. I didn't just pick a sweet turn of phrase to name you, but spoke from my soul when I named you thus. Without my heart I couldn't live. And I couldn't breathe without you."
"Are you a man who has more than one heart?"
"Nay. Only this one. But it's bitter and dark now from the pain I've brought you. — Karen Marie Moning

I love you Tory. I know I say it a lot, but ... "
"I know baby. I feel the same way about you. Those words never convey what goes through my mind and heart every time I look up and see you sitting in my house. Funny thign is, I always thought my house was full and that there was nothing missing in my life. I had a job I loved. Family who loved me. Good friends to keep me sane. Everything a human could want. And t hen I met an infuriating, impossible man who added the one thing I didn't know wasn't there."
"Dirty socks on the floor?"
She laughed. "No, the other part of my heart. The last face I see before I go to sleep and the first one I see when I get up. I'm so glad it was you."
Those words both thrilled and scared him. Mostly because he knew firsthand that if love went untended it turned into profound hatred.
Tory and Acheron — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I think he became a man who brought peace and wisdom to hi world, because he knew about war and folly. I think that he loved greatly, because he had seen what lost love is. And I think he came to know, too, that he was loved greatly." She looked at the strawberry in her hands. "But I thought you didn't want me to tell you your future. — Gary D. Schmidt

That's when I realized that sex was not necessarily a shared thing. Sex was something you do with someone else, yet you can experience it separately from each other. It didn't necessarily bring you closer. In fact, it could highlight the parts of you that feel most separate. Sex could reveal to you your own isolation. Sam had told me that this act added up to love, but I did not feel loved by Carlos then, nor, in that moment, could I feel my love for him. — Liz Murray

My mom, we had a relationship. I knew she loved me. I always knew she loved me. But she didn't, openly or overtly, express, you know, affection and love. But I - I knew. I knew she did. — Nadya Suleman

Adoption is outside. You act out what it feels like to be the one who doesn't belong. And you act it out by trying to do to others what has been done to you. It is impossible to believe anyone loves you for yourself.

I never believed that my parents loved me. I tried to love them but it didn't work. It has taken me a long time to learn how to love - both the giving and the receiving. I have written about love obsessively, forensically, and I know/knew it as the highest value.

I loved God of course, in the early days, and God loved me. That was something. And I loved animals and nature. And poetry. People were the problem. How do you love another person? How do you trust another person to love you?

I had no idea.
I thought that love was loss.
Why is the measure of love loss? — Jeanette Winterson

Kate, I've loved you for years. I mean, I know twelve-year-olds don't know what love is, so I guess I should say I've really liked you for years. But when I saw you this year, I knew. I knew we should be together. I just didn't know how hard you were going to make me work to get you to even like me. So, yeah, of course I want you to love me back. — Cindy C. Bennett

When Jesus looked down from the cross, he didn't think "I am giving myself to you because you are so attractive to me." No, he was in agony, and he looked down at us - denying him, abandoning him, and betraying him - and in the greatest act of love in history, he STAYED. He said, "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing." He loved us, not because we were lovely to him, but to make us lovely. — Timothy Keller