Least Romantic Quotes & Sayings

In all my fantasies about our first kiss - and there'd been about six hundred thousand of them - I never once imagined it would be like that one. Our dream kiss usually involved moonlight, or fog, or moonlight and fog, a very mysterious and romantic combination, at least in the right locale. Moonlit fog beside a lake or a lazy river: romantic. Moonlit fog in almost any other place, like a narrow alleyway: Jack the Ripper. — Rick Yancey

That was six years ago. We can't keep turning our backs on chances to live or...at least stop denying ourselves pleasure. — Ally Fleming

Nick stopped on the sidewalk, pulled a ring from his pocket, and handed it to Kate. "Your wedding ring."
It was a platinum band inlaid with diamonds. Simple but elegant.
Kate put the ring on her finger. "That's got to be the least romantic proposal in history. Where did you steal this?"
"I bought it," he said.
"That must have been a new experience for you."
"It was. Cost me ten grand." He slipped a matching platinum band onto his finger. "I want that ring back when this marriage is over."
"No way," she said. "You can keep the dishes. — Janet Evanovich

And so, in silence, we walked the surface of a dying world, but in the breast of one of us at least had been born that which is ever oldest, yet ever new.
I loved Dejah Thoris. The touch of my arm upon her naked shoulder had spoken to me in words I would not mistake, and I knew that I had loved her since the first moment my eyes had met hers that first time in the plaza of the dead city of Korad. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Having set its mark on the generation before Cocteau's, symbolism expressed a form of inner dissidence confronting the narrow-minded materialism and utilitarian obsession of the industrial revolution, and hence a reaction to triumphant naturalism, in literature at least. Nourished by medieval, Renaissance, and Romantic art, symbolism, probably the last great backward-looking movement hatched in the West, had given rise to a desire to explore the secrets of the world and the confines of the soul. Beyond its androgynous Mercuries, its pale Narcissuses, and its Orpheuses borne by rosaries of angels, it gave rise to a whole misty alchemy wherein some found their way into esotericism and even into the religious, since the Universe was only the symbol of another world into which entrance was gained not only through poetry, spiritualism, dreams, and the Ideal, but also via the play of analogies and the study of ciphers. — Claude Arnaud

Stop," he murmured, or at least that's what he meant to say. It came out sounding more like "Yes," which probably wasn't the same thing at all. — Tawna Fenske

NYC Institute has one. I'll show you sometime if you want.
It's a date.
It is maybe the least romantic spot in the Institute, by the way.
You'll make up for that, I'm sure.
(Jeez, get a locked room on unsanctified ground, you two.) — Cassandra Clare

The Potomac had taken away Linda and the boys.
The Rio Negro had given him Daniela.
One river had swallowed his heart; another river, halfway around the world, had gifted it back. A different heart, beaten up, scarred, but a beating heart at least. — Dana Marton

I had also pled, the whole year, to be wholly relieved of my romantic attachment; begged to stop loving so much. But I had finally been given to see that my desire was what made me human; that desire was my glory and my cross; that desire had given me a window onto the divine that would sustain me all my life. I had seen at least one person as God must us-for where did my eyes come from but God? - and that is a rare and precious gift. — Heather King

He tsked. "No tits, no manners." He shook his head. "You should try to have at least one or the other. A pair of great tits covers a multitude of sins. — Dana Marton

WWI is a romantic war, in all senses of the word. An entire generation of men and women left the comforts of Edwardian life to travel bravely, and sometimes even jauntily, to almost certain death. At the very least, any story or novel about WWI is about innocence shattered in the face of experience. — Anita Shreve

Like an unfinished symphony, her story played on my mind for most of my life. It would rock to the tune of the passage of time, an adagio of high notes, low notes an illusive movements. Then when I least expected it, I happened upon the missing notes in the life of Charlotte Howe Taylor. — Sally Armstrong

He had strong, steady hands, and I could tell from looking at them there was little he couldn't do. Mossy always said you could tell everything you needed to know about a man from his hands. Some hands, she told me, were leaving hands. They were the wandering sort that slipped into places they shouldn't, and they would wander right off again because those hands just couldn't stay still. Some hands were worthless hands, fit only to hold a drink or flick ash from a cigar, and some were punishing hands that hit hard and didn't leave a mark and those were the ones you never stayed to see twice.
But the best hands were knowing hands, Mossy told me with a slow smile. Knowing hands were capable; they could soothe a horse or woman. They could take things apart
including your heart
and put them back together better than before. Knowing hands were rare, but if you found them, they were worth holding, at least for a little while. — Deanna Raybourn

There are several authors who are also lawyers - and not only the ones who write legal thrillers. There are other attorneys who write romantic fiction, and I know of at least one who writes young adult books. — Candace Camp

You are gonna shoot me," he says. "One day." He's still holding Lindsay's hand, he's looking down at where their fingers are wound together and not at Lindsay's face, but his voice is clear. "I ain't thick. I know you'll get sick of me. You can't just let me go, I know too much, you'd be freaked out forever in case I snitched. You'll get proper sick of me one day, not just annoyed, and then you'll shoot me. It's okay."
"I won't get sick of you," Lindsay says. He feels numb and far away, as if its somebody else talking, and almost like he's going to throw up, a sort of lurch in his stomach like when you're at the top of the the Angel tube station escalator and somebody a bit too eager to get on the train shoves you from behind.
"Yeah you will. I'm gonna be with you til I die, though. Least I can say that and know its true, how many people can do that? Bit romantic, really. If you squint, and look at it sideways. — Richard Rider

After a few seconds of scraping, I realize what he has isn't a trail, it's a whole forest! Ack! Weren't all men supposed to shave their chest and stuff nowadays? Whatever happened to having fuzz-free Hollywood heroes as role models? At least my embarrassment is completely foregone by the irritation at his lack of upkeep. The only thing distracting me now is that heady mix of musk, shaving cream and a distinctly ... male scent. And God knows that is one seriously jeopardizing distraction. Especially with a whizzing needle in one's hand. — Rucy Ban

To be robbed and betrayed by a fiendish underground conspiracy, or by the earthly agents of Satan, is at least a romantic sort of plight - it suggests at least a grand Hollywood-ready confrontation between good and evil - but to be coldly ripped off over and over again by a bunch of bloodless, second-rate schmoes, schmoes you chose, you elected, is not something anyone will take much pleasure in bragging about. — Matt Taibbi

There's a pause so yawning I can't help but think about what it would be like to lean in and kiss her, but if I'm getting the signals wrong then I'm about to destroy the best run we've had all evening. It's been at least ten minutes since I've done or said anything stupid. — Leanne Hall

for now I'm just throwing it out there and asking you to at least consider that romantic attraction, as wonderful and as emotionally intoxicating as it can be, can actually lead you astray as much as it can help you. I'm not talking it down; "connecting" with someone on that level is a wonderful thing. Enjoy it, revel in it, even write a song about it if you want, but don't bet your life on it. — Gary L. Thomas

Face it. There's not going to be a happy ending ... at least not with this hero. So don't go mooning around thinking that your breakup is only the crisis before the big romantic scene, because I'm here to tell you that it's not. When you are dumped, you are dumped, and the guy isn't going to change his mind and realize that suddenly he loves you instead of that girl he's flirting with in lunchroom, now that he's free. — E. Lockhart

The secret to happiness, at least to peace of mind, is knowing how to separate sex from love. And, if possible, eliminating romantic love from your life, which is the love that makes you suffer. That way, I assure you, you live with greater tranquility and enjoy things more. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

Romantic lovers require from each other at least the facade of reason: We desire to be what romantic love makes us appear in the other's eyes. We want to imagine we are deserving of the love we inspire. — Maggie Gallagher

But Fin would always be a bit of a romantic, at least when it came to books. — Cathleen Schine

It's never simple." Avery slid an arm around Hope's waist. "It shouldn't be. Because being with someone should matter enough to be at least a little bit complicated. — Nora Roberts

When I talk about unrequited love, most of you probably think about romantic love, but there are many other kinds of love that are not adequately returned, if they are returned at all. An angry adolescent may not love her mother back as her mother loves her; an abusive father doesn't return the innocent open love of his young child. But grief is the ultimate unrequieted love. However hard and however long we love someone who has died, they can never love us back. At least that is how it feels ... — Rosamund Lupton

She had offered to drive, not least because it would have given her some control over the evening, but Gethin had raised an eyebrow and told her he liked a more comfortable ride. She assumed it was a reference to her van rather than some frank over-sharing. — Christine Stovell

The one thing I find the least romantic is taking a horse and carriage ride. I can't express enough how unhappy these horses are and how much pain and suffering they go through each day. Please do not ride [in horse-drawn carriages]. Take a beautiful walk together with your loved ones instead of bringing more pain to these beautiful animals. — Lea Michele

People like to think the creative process is romantic. The artist drifts to sleep at night, to be awakened by the subliminal echoes of his or her next brilliant idea. The truth, for me at least, is that creativity is primarily the result of hard work and study. — Grant Achatz

TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places - and there are so many - where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory. — Howard Zinn

Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays. — Oscar Wilde

[H]e initially conceived of Olivier as a man of the greatest promise destroyed by a fatal flaw, the unreasoning passion for a woman dissolving into violence, desperately weakening everything he tried to do. For how could learning and poetry be defended when it produced such dreadful results and was advanced by such imperfect creatures? At least Julien did not see the desperate fate of the ruined lover as a nineteenth-century novelist or a poet might have done, recasting the tale to create some appealing romantic hero, dashed to pieces against the unyielding society that produced him. Rather, his initial opinion
held almost to the last
was of Olivier as a failure, ruined by a terible weakness. — Iain Pears

Call me a 'hopeless romantic'? I'm a romantic, but I'm not hopeless. I know there are good people out there; and that at least one of them is right for me. I won't let you convince me to settle for less. — Steve Maraboli

Ressentiment is always to some degree a determinant of the romantic type of mind. At least this is so when the romantic nostalgia for some past era (Hellas, the Middle Ages, etc.) is not primarily based on the values of that period, but on the wish to escape from the present. Then all praise of the "past" has the implied purpose of downgrading present-day reality. — Max Scheler

I'm quite certain offering to carry out a contract killing violates at least two of Emily Post's etiquette rules."--Sloane Barrett, Killer Curves — Naima Simone

She couldn't picture anyone falling madly in love with such a person as Fish. What a name, Fish ... Fish: think cold, slippery, detached. Benedict: think dry scholarly monk from the Dark Ages. Denniston: think English preparatory school, stolid country squire. Nothing about his name sounded the least bit romantic. — Regina Doman

Romantic relationships are the least interesting thing for me to write about. I'm 45, and that's not the most interesting thing in my life anymore. — Kelly Sue DeConnick

The books we love offer a sketch of a whole universe that we secretly inhabit, and in which we desire the other person to assume a role.
One of the conditions of happy romantic compatibility is, if not to have read the same books, to have read at least some books in common with the other person - which means, moreover, to have non-read the same books. From the beginning of the relationship, then, it is crucial to show that we can match the expectations of our beloved by making him or her sense the proximity of our inner libraries. — Pierre Bayard

The more my heart is parked in a place of thanksgiving and rejoicing, the less room I have for grumpiness.
My kids are driving me crazy? At least they are healthy enough to have that kind of energy. Don't miss this chance to rejoice.
My laundry is piled to the ceiling? Every stitch of clothing is evidence of life in my home. Don't miss this chance to rejoice.
My husband isn't all skippy romantic about the two of us shopping together? In the grand scheme of life, so what? He's a good man. Don't miss this chance to rejoice.
I feel unorganized and behind and late on everything? Scale back, let unrealistic expectations go, and savor some happy moments today. Don't miss this chance to rejoice.
The more I rejoice, the more I keep things in perspective. The more I keep things in perspective, the gentler I become. — Lysa TerKeurst

For that moment at least they seemed to give up external plans, theories, and codes, even the inescapable romantic curiosity about one another, to indulge in being simply and purely young, to share that sense of the world's affliction, that outgoing sorrow at the spectacle of Our Human Condition which anyone this age regards as reward or gratuity for having survived adolescence.
For them the music was sweet and painful, the strolling chains of tourists like a Dance of Death. They stood on the curb, gazing at one another, jostled against by hawkers and sightseers, lost as much perhaps in that bond of youth as in the depths of the eyes each contemplated. — Thomas Pynchon

If I weren't so screwed up, I would've sold my soul a long time ago for a handsome man who made me feel pretty or who could at least treat me to a Millionaire's Martini. Instead I lingered over a watered down Sparkling Apple and felt sorry about what I was about to do to the blue-eyed bartender standing in front of me. Although I shouldn't, after all, I am a bail recovery agent. It's my job to get my skip, no matter the cost.If I weren't so screwed up, I would've sold my soul a long time ago for a handsome man who made me feel pretty or who could at least treat me to a Millionaire's Martini. Instead I lingered over a watered down Sparkling Apple and felt sorry about what I was about to do to the blue-eyed bartender standing in front of me. Although I shouldn't, after all, I am a bail recovery agent. It's my job to get my skip, no matter the cost. Yet, I had been wondering lately. What was this job costing me? Yet, I had been wondering lately. What was this job costing me? — Miranda Parker

The protagonist of Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours doesn't make it easy for us, channeling as he does Barry Hannah and Denis Johnson by way of Rick Bass and Dennis Hopper, and self-presenting as yet another damaged romantic who thinks it's always time to play the cowboy, skating in and out of sense. He can't see right, and he's haunted by nearly everything. He's trying to open up or shut himself down or at least get a hold of himself. He's trying to make do with what he's done, while he reminds us that we're all, one way or another, in that position. — Jim Shepard

I'm only doing my job." That's what I am. His job. He'd stopped my floor shows at the cantina. Not only that, the break-ins had ceased. At least until now. While the staff barely gave me the time of day, they were practically ready to canonize him. "They see you as the one in charge now. — Magda Alexander

Evil sorcerers always looked evil - at least in the Disney versions.
This was not Disney. — Cate Rowan

She moves me not, or not removes at least affection's edge in me. — William Shakespeare

On the road leading from his ranch to Samantha's, Wyat t drove his surrey up a small hill and caught his breath as the beauty of the large crescent moon dangling just out of reach over the crest A full moon would have been plump with luminescence, yet the pearly surface of the sickle still cast enough light to shadow his surroundings and seemed close enough that once he drove to the top of the hill, he'd be able to touch the bottom horn or at least toss a rope around it. He slackened the reins, slowing the horse, knowing that the higher he climbed, the sooner the illusion of closeness would disappear and he wanted to preserve for a moment the fantasy that the moon was within his grasp.
The stars, by contrast, were distant pricks of diamond light farther out than a man could dream. He sighed. Life as a rancher or as a rancher's wife was not moon and stars easy or romantic. What would put stars in Samantha's eyes? — Debra Holland

You need a boyfriend. Well sure, who doesn't need a boyfriend? But ealistically, those exotic creatures are hard to come by. At least a quality one. I go to an all- girls school, and meaning no disrespect to my sapphic sisters, but I have no interest in nding a romantic companion there. The rare boy creatures I do meet who aren't either related to me or who aren't gay are usually too at ached to their Xboxes to notice me, or their idea of how a teenage girl should look and act comes directly from the pages of Maxim magazine or from the tarty look of a video game character. — Rachel Cohn

Be thrown into a new life (or at least thrown with sush force against the life of someone who is like squashed his face against the window) forces you to rethink who you are. Or what causes impression for others — Jojo Moyes

You'll have to fall in love at least once in your life, or Paris has failed to rub off on you. — E.A. Bucchianeri

I must go
the aunts will be worried. Guy, I don't know if we will meet again, but
" Her voice broke and she tried again. "Sometimes, when you're alone and you look up at
" Once more, she had to stop. Then she managed, "If I cannot be anything else ... could I be your Star Sister? Could I at least be that?"
Guy dug his nails into his palms. Everything in him rose in protest at the fey, romantic conceit. He did not want her in the heavens, linked to him by some celestial whimsy, but here and now in the flesh and after the death of the flesh, her hand in his as they rose from graves like these when the last trump sounded.
"Yes," he managed to say. "You can be my Star Sister. You can at least be that. — Eva Ibbotson

From at least the age of six, romantic longing
Sechnsucht
has played an unusually central part of my experience. Such longing is in itself the very reverse of wishful thinking: it is more like thoughtful wishing. — C.S. Lewis

My fans like to be romantic. I feel like I'm creating at least at the same level or even a higher level of creativity than I was at twenty-one. I've gotten better as an artist. — Talib Kweli

My only regret," he gently tugged me back toward him, "would be leaving this world before naming you as my wife. If I die tomorrow, at least I'll have that to my credit." Wrapping his arms around my waist, he vowed, "You don't have to be queen ... but you will not fall into obscurity on a foreign world. You will bear the Omuran name, and I have to believe that will protect you." He brought his forehead to rest against mine, adding sorrowfully, "I have to believe that our family line wasn't meant to end with this. — M.A. George

For Nature, if she once endows man or woman with romance, gives them so rich a store of it as shall last them, life through, unto the end. In sickness or health, in poverty or riches, through middle age and old age, through loss of hair and loss of teeth, under wrinkled face and gouty limbs, under crow's-feet and double chins, under all the least romantic and most sordid malaisances of life, romance endures to the end. Its price is altogether above rubies; it can never be taken away from those that have it, and those that have it not, can never acquire it for money, nor by the most utter toil - no, nor ever arrive at the very faintest comprehension of it. — John Meade Falkner

Darlin', you are all female but not in the least little bit weak. — Avery Flynn

For a lot of the time I was in Berkeley, I was single. I was living in a kind of collegiate apartment by myself - it was like a protracted summer vacation. So at least in hindsight, I have gloomy emotions attached to Berkeley, whereas I started coming to New York because I was dating someone, and it was very exciting and romantic. — Adrian Tomine

Are we going to get killed?"
Cam scoped out the dingy room. No doubt there was at least one shotgun behind the bar and a few armed patrons, but no one struck him as particularly dangerous. "Not likely."
She kept her palm on the table and covertly pointed to a guy in a biker jacket with a large skull smoking a blunt. "But possible?"
He shrugged. "It is Friday night. — Avery Flynn

You married me for my brains? I can't believe it."
He grinned. "Well, among other things."
"My charming personality?"
He chuckled. "Not exactly. You have the nicest looking legs ever."
"What?"
"Hey! I can't help it. I guess I'm just a leg man. Personality comes in second. Brains are third."
"Brains are third?" she said in mock disappointment.
"So why did you marry me?"
"Hmmm." Amelia tapped his lips. "Your sweet kisses were the main reason. The rest of you came as a package deal."
"The rest of me?" he said incredulously. "Well, at least I'm a good kisser. I can live with that. — Linda Weaver Clarke

I thought you would at least help me retrieve my horse."
He stopped and mumbled under his breath, "If your horse has any sense he'll keep going. — B. J. Daniels

... now that I'm stuck here for an undetermined amount of time, it seems beyond foolish not to let me help." She took a bite for emphasis. "You could at least let me make you a sandwich," she added balefully through her mouthful.
"That was me being respectful of your law degree," Ian said. — Suzanne Brockmann

Romantic Egoist
What's better, an idiot who never tries ... or an idiot who at least takes a shot? — Bisco Hatori

An unarticulated crush is very different from an unrequited one, because at least with an unrequited crush you know what the hell you're doing, even if the other person isn't doing it back. An unarticulated crush is harder to grapple with, because it's a crush that you haven't even admitted to yourself. The romantic forces are all there
you want to see him, you always notice him, you treat every word from him as if it weighs more than anyone else's. But you don't know why. You don't know that you're doing it. You'd follow him to the end of the earth without ever admitting that your feet were moving. — David Levithan

So completely stunned by the force of that smile, Sam found himself helpless to do anything but watch as she quickly closed the gap between them. Her hands reached up to grasp his chin, and he bent down to her, not really knowing why he did it. It was like gravity, so natural that the compulsion was inescapable. Her heels helped.
When
she kissed him, every nerve ending in his body exploded into his awareness.
No girl had ever kissed him like that. Hell, no girl had ever kissed any guy like that, at least not that Sam had heard. — Isobel Irons

So, where are you from?" Agent Carson asked Reyes. "Originally?"
I whirled around to face him again, this time pinning him with a warning glare. Carson was an FBI agent, but I was all about stealth. Surely she wouldn't pick up on my silent threat.
He studied my mouth, not the least bit worried about my warning glare, then said at last, "Here and there."
I relaxed against the seatback. He didn't say hell. Thank God he didn't say hell. It was always hard to explain to friends how, exactly, one's fiance was born and raised in the eternal flames of damnation. How his father was, in fact, public enemy number one. And how he escaped from hell and was born on earth as a human to be with his true love. As romantic as it all sounded, it was difficult to articulate without garnering a visit from men with butterfly nets. — Darynda Jones

Now, I did know a certain young lady of the 'romantic' generation of not so long ago who, after being mysteriously in love for several years with a certain gentleman whom she could have married at any time without the least difficulty, suddenly broke off their relationship, inventing for herself all manner of insurmountable obstacles, and one stormy night plunged from a high, precipitous cliff into a fairly deep and fast-flowing river, where she perished from her own caprice solely through her attempt to imitate Shakespeare's Ophelia, for, had the precipice, which she had long before singled out and been compulsively drawn to, been less picturesque, and had there been only a prosaically flat bank in its stead, perhaps there would have been no suicide at all. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

For every romantic possiblity, no matter how robust, there exists at least one equal and opposite sentence, phrase, or word capable of extinguishing it. — Malcolm Gladwell

In England, wit is at least a profession, if not an art. everything becomes professional there, and even the rogues of that islandare pedants. So are the "wits" there too. They introduce into reality absolute freedom whose reflection lends a romantic and piquant air to wit, and thus they live wittily; hence their talent for madness. They die for their principles. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Brick stood silhouetted against the frozen lake through this front window. "Be careful. It sounds like you've got at least one killer out there. Someone who thought they'd gotten away with murder. It's easier to kill after the first time, they say. — B. J. Daniels

Have you ever considered making at least a pretense of humility, Mr. Hunt? Just for the sake of politeness?
"I don't believe in false modesty."
"People might like you more if you did."
"Would you? — Lisa Kleypas

It's important not to overstate the benefits of ideas. Quite frankly, I know it's kind of a romantic notion that you're just going to have this one brilliant idea and then everything is going to be great. But the fact is that coming up with an idea is the least important part of creating something great. It has to be the right idea and have good taste, but the execution and delivery are what's key. — Sergey Brin

A sound banker, alas, is not one who foresees danger and avoids it, but one who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and orthodox way along with his fellows, so that no one can really blame him. It is necessarily part of the business of a banker to maintain appearances, and to confess a conventional respectability, which is more than human. Life-long practices of this kind make them the most romantic and the least realistic of men. — John Maynard Keynes

I know it must seem completely idiotic to you," Maddie said, hoping to coax at least a grunt from her, "hiring a date to your only sister's wedding and all."
Louise slowly nodded.
"I mean, who does such things nowadays, right? Women don't need men for anything. Well, they do need them for one thing. But that's all - and, really, debatable depending on your sexual orientation. — Jennifer Shirk