Love Chain Quotes & Sayings

His blue eyes brightened with a smile. 'I did.' He looked over his shoulder, as if making sure her mom wasn't looking. The he pulled her against him and kissed her. A soft kiss.
'I got you something,' He whispered, his lips breathing words against hers.
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a ring. A gold ring with a large diamond. A beautiful, teardrop-shaped diamond that looked like an engagement ring. Kylie's breath caught.
'It was my grandmother's ring. In her letter she wrote you should have it. And before you start panicking, let me say that I know maybe we're too young to call it an engagement, That's why I got you this too.' He pulled out a gold chain 'I want you to wear it around your neck. Call it a promise- A promise that when you do slip a ring on that finger ... ' He ran his hand down to her left hand. 'That it'll be my ring.'
Emotion rose in her chest 'You don't have to give me anything for me to give you that promise. — C.C. Hunter

Forgiveness breaks the chain of causality because he who 'forgives' you
out of love
takes upon himself the consequences of what you have done. Forgiveness, therefore, always entails a sacrifice.
The price you must pay for your own liberation through another's sacrifice is that you in turn must be willing to liberate in the same way, irrespective of the consequences to yourself. — Dag Hammarskjold

Marriage is like a golden ring in a chain, whose beginning is a glance and whose ending is eternity. — Khalil Gibran

The old endless chain of love, tolerance, indifference, aversion and disgust — Samuel Beckett

Men are less hesitant about harming someone who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared because love is held together by a chain of obligation which, since men are wretched creatures, is broken on every occasion in which their own interests are concerned; but fear is sustained by dread of punishment which will never abandon you. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Love was a sacred garment, woven of a fabric so thin that it could not be seen, yet so strong that even mighty death could not tear it, a garment that could not be frayed by use, that brought warmth into what would otherwise be an intolerable, cold world- but at times love could also be as heavy as chain mail. Bearing the burden of love, on those occasions when it was a solemn weight, made it more precious when, in better times, it caught the wind in sleeves like wings, and lifted you. — Dean Koontz

These stories at times to be stories of a long-lost world when the city of New York was still filled with a river light, when you heard Benny Goodman quartets from a radio in the corner stationary store, when almost everybody wore a hat. Here is the last of that generation of chain smokers who woke to the world in the morning with their coughing, who used to get stoned at cocktail parties and perform obsolete dance steps like 'the Cleveland Chicken,' sail for Europe on ships, who were nostalgic for love and happiness, and whose gods were as ancient as yours and mine, whoever you are. — John Cheever

I think LOVE. Love is what brings families together, and love is often what drives them apart. Love can act as both a fuel and an exterminator for fire, a cause of war, but also of peace. Love brings new souls to the family and removes old ones. Love is a chain of memories, like an old photo album of life- you never really can throw it away. — Chloe Gadsby-Jones

Love has seven names, / Which, as you know, are appropriate to her; / Chain, light, live coal, and fire - / ... dew, living spring, and hell. — Hadewijch

His voice is a chain pulling me back to Earth. — R.A. Nelson

A purposeful act or extension of kindness to another is never wasted, for it always resides in the hearts of all involved in a chain of love. — Molly Friedenfeld

Farsi Couplet:
Naala-e zanjeer-e Majnun arghanoon-e aashiqanast
Zauq-e aan andaza-e gosh-e ulul-albaab neest


English Translation:
The creaking of the chain of Majnun is the orchestra of the lovers,
To appreciate its music is quite beyond the ears of the wise. — Amir Khusrau

They may look grown-up," she continued, "but it's a disguise. It's just the clay of time. Men and women are still children deep in their hearts. They still would like to jump and play, but that heavy clay won't let them. They'd like to shake off every chain the world's put on them, take off their watches and neckties and Sunday shoes and return naked to the swimming hole, if just for one day. They'd like to feel free, and know that there's a momma and daddy at home who'll take care of things and love them no matter what. Even behind the face of the meanest man in the world is a scared little boy trying to wedge himself into a corner where he can't be hurt. — Robert McCammon

I'm absolutely obsessed with The Jesus And Mary Chain and Patti Smith, but I'm a massive pop fan. I love pop culture, It's a total reflection of the zeitgeist. — Siobhan Fahey

I think Dr. Willis McNelly at the California State University at Fullerton put it best when he said that the true protagonist of an sf story or novel is an idea and not a person. If it is *good* sf the idea is new, it is stimulating, and, probably most important of all, it sets off a chain-reaction of ramification-ideas in the mind of the reader; it so-to-speak unlocks the reader's mind so that the mind, like the author's, begins to create. Thus sf is creative and it
inspires creativity, which mainstream fiction by-and-large does not do. We who read sf (I am speaking as a reader now, not a writer) read it because we love to experience this chain-reaction of ideas being set off in our minds by something we read, something with a new idea in it; hence the very best since fiction ultimately winds up being a collaboration between author and reader, in which both create and enjoy doing it: joy is the essential and final ingredient of science fiction, the joy of discovery of newness. — Philip K. Dick

I guess the higher up on the food chain you go, the admiration isn't just for the hungry, but for the ones that go the extra mile to take a bite. — Angela Richardson

As I hope
For quiet days, fair issue, and long life,
With such love as 'tis now, the murkiest den,
The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion
Our worser genius can, shall never melt
Mine honour into lust, to take away
The edge of that day's celebration,
When I shall think or Phoebus' steeds are founder'd
Or Night kept chain'd below. — William Shakespeare

Be like you thought our love would last too long, if it were chain'd together — William Shakespeare

A knight will give a lady a ring from his hand and take a kiss from her lips, when he wishes to love her and serve her all his days," she recited, as she had when he was small. She pulled the ring from the chain and held it out to him. "This ring is the knight's who swore to serve me. Take it. One day you may find a lady to wear it. — Suzannah Rowntree

I have this necklace I always wear. I collect pendants from people I love; my best friends and members of my family have all given me one, and I put them on this chain so no matter where I am they're always with me. — Lake Bell

My daddy has a chain five miles long, on each link a heart for a lover he has lost. — Dolly Parton

Falling in love is a lot like death. It chooses you. It decides the moment and the chain of events that will preclude the precise intersection of life in which it occurs. It uses you - treats you as though you were malleable in its warm pliable hands. It doesn't bother to ask if you want it, or need it, just fills the gaping hole of destiny's design — Addison Moore

You are not going to lose me," said Claybriar. "I don't want to put you through that."

"Is that a promise?" I said, and then immediately realized what I'd asked. I held my hand up in front of his mouth even as he drew breath to answer. "No," I said. "Don't bind yourself. Just do your best to stay alive; that's enough for me."

It was a little dizzying to realize that he'd been willing to promise me that he'd never leave me, and that unlike the others in my past he'd be bound to that promise. It was tempting, in a dark sort of way. But I wouldn't let him do it any more than I'd let him chain himself in the hold of a sinking ship. — Mishell Baker

We are speaking of love. A leaf, a handful of seed - begin with these, learn a little what it is to love. First a leaf, a fall of rain, then someone to receive what a leaf has taught you, what a fall of rain has ripened. No easy process, understand; it could take a lifetime, it has mine, and still I've never mastered it - I only know how true it is; that love is a chain of love, as nature is a chain of life. — Truman Capote

Tis said if under a waxing moon a maid weaves a chain of bluebells within the stone circle, the next lad she sees will be her true love." She held up her handiwork. "Tis no' quite finished, so I believe ye are safe from me... — Willa Blair

Love is the chain whereby to lock a child to its parent. — Abraham Lincoln

Marriage is more than your love for each other. It has a higher dignity and power, for it is God's holy ordinance, through which He wills to perpetuate the human race till the end of time. In your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in the chain of the generations, which God causes to come and to pass away to His glory, and calls into His kingdom. In your love, you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsability towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal - it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I hate that bookstores are closing. Hate it! What's better than hanging out a bookstore, be it independent or chain, and talking books with people who love books? — Lisa Jackson

Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that ... The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. — Martin Luther King Jr.

I opened my eyes to see a silver chain, like his but thinner, longer, with a saint pendant on it. I wasn't the same as his, though; the image was of a man's profile, his eyes turned upward.
'Who is it?' I asked.
'No idea. I found it in a jar my mom has full of them,' he said. 'I was looking for someone like mine, then just someone I recognized. But then I thought maybe it was cooler to have it be a mystery, you know? So it's not just about one thing, but anything. That way, it can be about what you want it to be.'
I turned it over in my hand. Like the image on the front, the back was well-worn, the few words there unreadable.
'Saint Anything.' I looked up at him. 'I love it. Thank you. — Sarah Dessen

Love is the chain whereby to bind a child to its parents. — Abraham Lincoln

If your blade were as sharp as your tongue, you'd have sliced me through years ago. — Erica Goros

Care for us! True, indeed! They ne'er cared for us yet: suffer us to famish, and their storehouses crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more piercing statutes daily to chain up and restrain the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and there's all the love they bear us. — William Shakespeare

It's an odd thing to think about, but try imagining that your breakup is a disease. If you were told that you had a serious yet curable disease, would you go get hammered on a regular basis? Eat two bags of Oreos? Chain-smoke, pop, pills, get stoned, or fuck around? NO YOU WOULDN'T. You would take great care of yourself and cut all the unhealthy things out of your life. Because you love yourself, and even if you don't right now, WE DO. So put the (insert vice here) and start moving on. — Greg Behrendt

The new living flesh was replicating the old in a game, we were a chain of shadows who had always been on the stage with the same burden of love, hatred, desire, and violence. — Elena Ferrante

How many times do I love, again?
Tell me how many beads there are
In a silver chain
Of evening rain
Unravelled from the trembling main
And threading the eye of a yellow star:-
So many times do I love again. — Thomas Lovell Beddoes

Am I dreaming?" "You're not dreaming," Matthew said. "And, Diana?" He hesitated. "I love you." It was what I most wanted to hear. The forgotten chain inside me started to sing, quietly, in the dark. — Deborah Harkness

Where beats a heart within a human breast, There be Thou present, and Thy power adored! And oh! since all are doom'd one common race To run, and one eternal goal to reach, May Thy prime attribute each bosom warm With tender sympathy and truth; may man Be link'd to man in fellowship of soul, Till one vast chain of Love embrace the world! — Robert Montgomery

General David Petraeus was so successful at getting on covers of magazines, having journalists fall in love with him, that in fact he was able to use that power to go around the normal chain of command. — Michael Hastings

Somewhere somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Can we capture the love of God? Can we contain him in all His might? No, but he has promised to bind us to Him, in chains of righteousness held tight. Can we capture the light of God? Can we bask forever under His warm rays? No, but weeping may go on for a night, and joy is as sure as the coming of the new day. We cannot hold Him; but still close to Him we are held. We cannot love him as He deserves, but it was He that loved us first. We cannot chain Him in, but in chains of love we are bound. We cannot bind the infinite God, but it is us that he surrounds. — Ana Lisa De Jong

Our government is an agency of delegated and strictly limited powers. Its founders did not look to its preservation by force; but the chain they wove to bind these States together was one of love and mutual good offices ... — Jefferson Davis

169. We whip them. Starve them. Chain them. Break their spirits. Break their minds. Still they love us. Still they offer up their lives without hesitation. Because when a horse loves you, it's fucking absolute. And all they ask is that you love them back. Most of them never get even that. — Matthew Woodring Stover

One of the stories I love is how Gutenberg's printing press set off this interesting chain reaction, where all of a sudden people across Europe noticed for the first time that they were farsighted, and needed spectacles to read books (which they hadn't really noticed before books became part of everyday life); which THEN created a market for lens makers, which then created pools of expertise in crafting lenses, which then led people to tinker with those lenses and invent the telescope and microscope, which then revolutionized science in countless ways. — Steven Johnson

Marriage is the union of two divinities that a third might be born on earth. It is the union of two souls in a strong love for the abolishment of separateness. It is that higher unity which fuses the separate unities within the two spirits. It is the golden ring in a chain whose beginning is a glance, and whose ending is Eternity. It is the pure rain that falls from an unblemished sky to fructify and bless the fields of divine Nature. — Khalil Gibran

I love the Wikipedia link chain because it has led me into some strange articles. Wikipedia is one of my favorites. — Veronica Roth

He was getting addicted to kissing her. He was going to slip up sooner rather than later. Secret-laden smiles as they greeted one another when in company could never be enough; he wanted to fling his arms around her and kiss her whenever she walked into a room. Resting their hands on one another's knees under the lecture theatre desk was one thing, but he wanted to stroll around campus with his arm thrown across her shoulders, make his lap a pillow for her as she lay and studied in the grassy quad, introduce her to everyone he came across as his girlfriend.
Finding that chain of thought too tender to pursue, Adam kissed her again, found himself wishing into her as if she were a candle he was blowing out. Please, decide that I'm worth it. — Erin Lawless

The very emphasis of the commandment: Thou shalt not kill, makes it certain that we are descended from an endlessly long chain of generations of murderers, whose love of murder was in their blood as it is perhaps also in ours. — Sigmund Freud

There are things that I invented - the creaky geriatric robot that is always grumpy, for example, or the little wheelie guy, he's not in the Hasbro lore. But kids love that stuff - this little guy as a pet on a chain. They gravitate towards it. — Michael Bay

I feel relieved, reborn, I'm me again.
Free from heartbreak, that strong yet invisible chain,
That stymied me from living again. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

Her Triumph
I did the dragon's will until you came
Because I had fancied love a casual
Improvisation, or a settled game
That followed if I let the kerchief fall:
Those deeds were best that gave the minute wings
And heavenly music if they gave it wit;
And then you stood among the dragon-rings.
I mocked, being crazy, but you mastered it
And broke the chain and set my ankles free,
Saint George or else a pagan Perseus;
And now we stare astonished at the sea,
And a miraculous strange bird shrieks at us. — W.B.Yeats

These diamonds in your face will chain you to the omnipotence of love. You will become a strange beast. The light that once dazzled your lover will leave him terrified of his desire for you. She dances for me and I dance for her. We — Peekash Press

People can't believe how hard I work ... I love it. I think it just runs through my veins. My great-grandfather was a bellboy and had a dream to do a hotel chain, so I think I get it from him. — Paris Hilton

Chain me with roaring bears;
Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house,
O'er-covered quite with dead men's rattling bones,
With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;
Or bid me go into a new-made grave,
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud;
Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble;
And I will do it without Fear or Doubt,
To live an unstain'd Wife of my sweet Love. — William Shakespeare

As a parting gift, he gave Harold the key chain from his house keys, the ones that opened the gate to Hamilton Arms: it was a clover, a charm for luck. Its stem was a little drawer, into which, Harold later found, George had put a love note. Harold kept the clover for the rest of his life. — Liz Moore

I had to get over [him]. For months now, a stone had been sitting on my heart. I'd shed a lot of tears over [him], lost a lot of sleep, eaten a lot of cake batter. Somehow, I had to move on. [Life] would be hell if I didn't shake loose from the grip he had on my heart. I most definitely didn't want to keep feeling this way, alone in a love affair meant for two. Even if he'd felt like The One. Even if I'd always thought we'd end up together. Even if he still had a choke chain on my heart. — Kristan Higgins

When you hate something, you chain yourself to it. — Steve Maraboli

Even a mentally challenged shark would figure out that sea turtles did not wear boxer shorts printed in flying piggies, and no sea turtle would be yattering streams of obscenities between chain-smoker gasps of breath. — Christopher Moore

1) Never trust a cop in a raincoat.
2) Beware of enthusiasm and of love, both are temporary and quick to sway.
3) If asked if you care about the world's problems, look deep into the eyes of he who asks, he will never ask you again.
4) Never give your real name.
5) If ever asked to look at yourself, don't look.
6) Never do anything the person standing in front of you can't understand.
7) Never create anything, it will be misinterpreted, it will chain you and follow you for the rest of your life. — Hunter S. Thompson

One glorious chain of love, of giving and receiving, unites all creatures. — Samson Raphael Hirsch

I will draw you back to me. You shall see. By a chain of stars. — Tanith Lee

I love you, she told him, and he knew that this was true, and she knew that he believed her; but when she said it she saw the chain around his ankle, a length of links that let him wander, but not far. She did not see the chain around her own ankle, because love is blind. — Sonya Hartnett

Oft in the stilly night, Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Fond memory brings the light Of other days around me; The smiles, the tears, Of boyhood's years, The words of love then spoken; The eyes that shone Now dimmed and gone, The cheerful hearts now broken. — Charles Lamb

The constants that I look for are a love of light and a determination to trace some moral chain of being. — John Cheever

Think not that thou canst fail of entering into rest. If He hath called thee, nothing can divide thee from His love. Distress cannot sever the bond; the fire of persecution cannot burn the link; the hammer of hell cannot break the chain. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Oh, dear." "Oh dear?" Bernard asked. She reached up and touched her throat, where Bernard's ring still hung by its chain. "Oh, dear. We've survived. We're alive. And ... and we're wed." Bernard blinked a few times, then mused, "Why, yes. I suppose that's true. We've lived. And we've married. I suppose now we'll have to stay together. Perhaps even be in love." "Exactly," Amara repeated, closing her weary eyes with a sigh and leaning against the broad strength of his chest. "This ruins everything. — Jim Butcher

For all your talk, you don't know the first thing about love." Tears spilled over her lashes and rolled down her cheeks. She slipped the chain that held his Super Bowl ring over her head and pressed it into his palm. "I love you, Bobby Tom, and I'll love you till the day I die. But I've never been for sale. I was a free offering all along. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

What if everything operates by love?' I said to her, 'I mean, what if this God presence ... is God moving through us and through everything we do? If so, why do we resist it? What if everything horrible that happens, from drive-by shootings to illness, is because we have broken this chain of love, and we don't know how to put everything right again? — Carolyn Weber

Hurt people hurt people. That's how pain patterns gets passed on, generation after generation after generation. Break the chain today. Meet anger with sympathy, contempt with compassion, cruelty with kindness. Greet grimaces with smiles. Forgive and forget about finding fault. Love is the weapon of the future. — Yehuda Berg

Christian hypocrites who pretend to hate life and love death. He may talk about the soul-what he is after is the girl Love means suffering-those who love drag a chain with them. To her it was not a belief but a certainty Trifling incident gains importance when undue emphasis is laid. — Georg Ebers

His answers were quite often like that. When she spoke of beauty, he spoke of the fatty tissue supporting the epidermis. When she mentioned love, he responded with the statistical curve that indicates the automatic rise and fall in the annual birthrate. When she spoke of the great figures in art, he traced the chain of borrowings that links these figures to one another. — Robert Musil

I'm from Jersey, so I have a love of T.G.I. Friday's and chain restaurants in general. When you go to a Friday's, it seems like everyone's on ecstasy and way too happy anyway. — Lorene Scafaria

Fear is a wolf on a chain, only dangerous when you set it free. Sorrow exhausts itself in the net of forgetting. Anger, for all its fury, can be killed by a smile. Only hope goes on forever, because hope doesn't belong to us: it belongs to our ancestors, the first of our kind, whose brave love for one another gave us most of the good that we are. — Gregory David Roberts

Motherhood is a blissful chain ... I have a mother - my precious gift ... I am a mother - the best of my kind! — Jaachynma N.E. Agu

If I could make you stay, I would,' he shouted. 'If I had to beat you, chain you, starve you - if I could make you stay, I would.' He turned back into the room; the wind blew his hair. He shook his finger at me, grotesquely playful. 'One day, perhaps, you will wish I had. — James Baldwin

You are the husband of my heart, and the love of my life. Wherever I am, whatever I do, you are joined with me and I with you. The part of me that matters will live with you forever. I accept the chain that binds us with joy, because in this unity I have known the purest freedom. — Madeline Hunter

Man doeth this and doeth that from the good or evil of his heart; but he knows not to what end his sense doth prompt him; for when he strikes he is blind to where the blow shall fall, nor can he count the airy threads that weave the web of circumstance. Good and evil, love and hate, night and day, sweet and bitter, man and woman, heaven above and the earth beneath
all those things are needful, one to the other, and who knows the end of each? — H. Rider Haggard

In struggling for human dignity the oppressed people of the world must not allow themselves to become bitter or indulge in hate campaigns. To retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can be done only by projecting the ethics of love to the center of our lives. — Martin Luther King Jr.

We are not separate and independent entities, but like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way. — Thomas E. Mann

Mutual fear is a principal link in the chain of mutual love. — Thomas Paine

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

Night of Sleepless Love 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. — Federico Garcia Lorca

May I ask Master a question?"
"What is it you want to know, girl?"
"Does Master love his girl?"
He moved her into the railing, the intricate cast iron of the boundary around the balcony bit into her ass. Anyone walking by and looking up would see her naked. She knew that and he knew that.
"What does she think?" He parted her legs and stood between her open thighs. Her wrists still imprisoned in his hand hung over the barrier.
"Yes?"
"Every day for the last eight years I've worn her chain around my neck. A habit I couldn't break, a ritual like clockwork every morning. Her chain around my neck, my watch on my wrist. — April Vine

Come, let us hasten to a higher plane
Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn,
Their indices bedecked from one to n
Commingled in an endless Markov chain!
I'll grant thee random access to my heart,
Thou'lt tell me all the constants of thy love;
And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove,
And in our bound partition never part.
Cancel me not - for what then shall remain?
Abscissas some mantissas, modules, modes,
A root or two, a torus and a node:
The inverse of my verse, a null domain.
- Love and Tensor Algebra — Stanislaw Lem

Stupid women, and all are stupid, think the first winning of the man the final victory. Then they settle down and grow fat, and stale, and dead, and heartbroken. Alas, they are so stupid. But you, little infant-woman with your first victory, you must make your love-life an unending chain of victories. Each day you must win your man again. And when you have won the last victory, when you can find no more to win, then ends love. Finis is written, and your man wanders in strange gardens. — Jack London

We are not isolated islands, we are connected links in a chain. Each kind word, each smiling face, each good action, benefits our neighbor, nation, world. Let us pray and meditate together and we shall reach the shore of peace, spreading the sweet holy fragrance of love and vibrations of unity and harmony. Tuning our minds to the supreme consciousness, let us open our hearts and chant the words, "May everyone everywhere be happy." — Mata Amritanandamayi

There's a fine line between pleasure and pain. Love me like a ball and chain. — Brian Setzer

Just as there was a first instant when someone rubbed two sticks together to make a spark, there was a first time joy was felt, and a first time for sadness. For a while, new feelings were being invented all the time. Desire was born early, as was regret. When stubbornness was felt for the first time, it started a chain reaction, creating the feeling of resentment on the one hand, and alienation and loneliness on the other. It might have been a certain counterclockwise movement of the hips that marked the birth of ecstasy; a bolt of lightening that caused the feeling of awe. Contrary to logic, the feeling of surprise wasn't born immediately. It only came after people had enough time to get used to things as they were. And when enough time had passed, and someone felt the first feeling of surprise, someone, somewhere else, felt the first pang of nostalgia. — Nicole Krauss

I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, love is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. To return hate for hate does nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil, and this can only be done through love.
- Martin Luther King Jr. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Thus, from the first divine contract, and the pure region where truth abides, a continuous chain of mercies and light extends to humanity, through every epoch, and will be prolonged to the end of time, until it returns to the abode from which it descends, taking with it all the peaceful souls it shall have collected in its course; that we may know that it was Love which opened, directed and closed the circle of all things. — Louis Claude De Saint-Martin

See, I've always been afraid of marriage because of, you know, ball and chain, I want my freedom, all that. But when I was thinking about that stupid girl I suddenly saw it was the opposite: that if you got married to someone you know you love, and you sort yourself out, it frees you up for other things. — Nick Hornby

Werther identifies himself with the madman, with the footman. As a reader, I can identify myself with Werther. Historically, thousands of subjects have done so, suffering, killing themselves, dressing, perfuming themselves, writing as if they were Werther (songs, poems, candy boxes, belt buckles, fans, colognes a' la Werther). A long chain of equivalences links all the lovers in the world. In the theory of literature, "projection" (of the reader into the character) no longer has any currency: yet it is the appropriate tonality of imaginative readings: reading a love story, it is scarcely adequate to say I project myself; I cling to the image of the lover, shut up with his image in the very enclosure of the book (everyone knows that such stories are read in a state of secession, of retirement, of voluptuous absence: in the toilet). — Roland Barthes

Oh Susie, I often think that I will try to tell you how very dear you are, and how I'm watching for you, but the words won't come, though the tears will, and I sit down disappointed. Yet, darling, you know it all
then why do I seek to tell you? I do not know. In thinking of those I love, my reason is all gone from me, and I do fear sometimes that I must make a hospital for the hopelessly insane, and chain myself up there so I won't injure you. — Emily Dickinson

There is but one chain holding us in fetters, and that is our love of life. — Seneca.

I imagined the lies the valedictorian was telling them right now. About the exciting future that lies ahead. I wish she'd tell them the truth: Half of you have gone as far in life as you're ever going to. Look around. It's all downhill from here. The rest of us will go a bit further, a steady job, a trip to Hawaii, or a move to Phoenix, Arizona, but out of fifteen hundred how many will do anything truly worthwhile, write a play, paint a painting that will hang in a gallery, find a cure for herpes? Two of us, maybe three? And how many will find true love? About the same. And enlightenment? Maybe one. The rest of us will make compromises, find excuses, someone or something to blame, and hold that over our hearts like a pendant on a chain. — Janet Fitch

It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. I realised, somehow, through the screaming of my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn't sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it's all you've got, that freedom is an universe of possibility. And the choice you make between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life. — Gregory David Roberts

Life by life and love by love
We passed through the cycles strange,
And breath by breath and death by death
We followed the chain of change.
Till there came a time in the law of life
When over the nursing sod
The shadows broke and the soul awoke
In a strange, dim dream of God. — Langdon Smith

There's no pattern to falling in love. At least, nothing I can understand. Not something I could see beforehand. Not something I can decipher after, either. Trust can be earned, piece by piece, like links of a chain. But love is more like faith, or belief: it's a leap. It's hurtling over the edge of the cliff and trusting you will not drown. — Megan Miranda

I treat my writing life like a fabulous, enchanting lover, because that is what it is to me. Something that is terribly time consuming, delicious and time-stopping. I have missed important meetings for love, and I will continue to put my writing life in the same position. My writing life is the lover at the center, not the neglected cranky demanding millstone, my ball and chain.
When you are love, truly and passionately, you don't have to write down in your daily schedule "Spend quality time with Lover today. You can't not. — Heather Sellers

He took the necklace out of the box and carefully fastened it around her neck. Just like he'd imagined himself doing when he bought it. That might even be why he bought it - so he'd have this moment, under her hair. He ran his fingertips along the chain and settled the pendant on her throat. — Rainbow Rowell