Love In Hard Time Quotes & Sayings

It's about prioritizing. Just take it one step at a time. Do the best that you can. I'm a mom and I have two husbands - an ex husband and a next husband. It's a blended family and it's very hard to keep things together, but we're happy and we live in love. Djimon and I are so happy. — Kimora Lee Simmons

said, 'Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.' 13 "But you have cultivated wickedness and harvested a thriving crop of sins. You have eaten the fruit of lies - trusting in your military might, believing that great armies could make your nation safe. — Anonymous

I hear pounding feet in the streets below
And the women crying and the children know
That there's something wrong
And it's hard to believe that love will prevail
Oh it won't rain all the time
The sky won't fall forever
And though the night seems long
Your tears won't fall forever — Jane Siberry

There is a fine line between love and hate, or haven't you heard? Sometimes it's hard to decipher exactly which emotion is strongest."
I raised my chin. "I don't love you either."
He lowered his head and watched me from underneath his dark lashes. "Are you certain? Because the emotion pouring out of you every time I'm near you is certainly not disinterest."
"That doesn't mean it's love."
"It could be, I promise you. Take off that sweater and give me ten minutes, and you'll believe beyond a shadow of a doubt you're in love. — Darynda Jones

I've finally been able to trust and have intimacy with somebody, which I've never been able to do. Like a lot of guys, I just have a hard time getting that connected. I can actually sleep with her in my arms - spoons position, right? Women smile, they love the spoons. Men would rather fork. — Greg Fitzsimmons

His smiles were hard won, but when they came, they were well worth it. They lit up his face like summer sunshine. The rest of the time, and far more frequently, he seemed lost in winter. And when he laughed, he was a different person. — Danielle Steel

I do - oh, indeed I do - desire to live up to my profession, to be His, for time and eternity. But I am learning to sec how very weak I am, and how easily Satan can conquer me even when I do strive against him. I do believe with my head that Jesus can, and will give me His grace, and I do not need to fear, yet somehow my heart seems to be hard and cold and not to take it in. Oh, if we were but there - where there is no more sin ! Oh do not forget to pray for me, and don't ever doubt the love of your unworthy friend. — Frances Ridley Havergal

I meant it when I said I didn't believe in love at first sight. It takes time to really, truly fall for someone. Yet I believe in a moment. A moment when you glimpse the truth within someone, and they glimpse the truth within you. In that moment, you don't belong to yourself any longer, not completely. Part of you belongs to him; part of him belongs to you. After that, you can't take it back, no matter how much you want to, no matter how hard you try. — Claudia Gray

So much time and energy, so much love and learning had gone into those long years of motherhood, and now, between a morning and a morning - or so it felt - they were over. It seemed that mothers of daughters had a more extended role but she knew that she was lucky to be allowed any part in her boys' lives and tried hard to be grateful and undemanding. It wasn't always easy, when she loved them so much, to practice detachment.... Odd that the last of the parenting skills should be the most painful: the final act of letting go. — Marcia Willett

She doesnt want your dark embrace. She'll let you hold her for a short time but she won't submit to that kind of weakness and she'll only let you get so close. In the past it was easier pushing you into the arms of another rather than face what was or what could be. She doesn't want to love; not now, so she'll close the door and toss the key. — Donna Lynn Hope

My daddy said, that the first time you fall in love, it changes you forever and no matter how hard you try, that feeling just never goes away. — Nicholas Sparks

A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child. And I have searched myself for this possibility with a kind of horror. For I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment. I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage. My wife married a man; I saw no reason why she should inherit a baby. — John Steinbeck

Our failure to forgive others keeps us in bondage. When you fail to take the hard road of learning to love your neighbor, or your enemy, or the one who painfully wronged you, you will find yourself forever stuck in a pit that from time to time overwhelms you. Forgiveness is hard in the short term. But staying stuck in the pit of unforgiveness, while easier in the short term, is death in the long term. — Dan Lacich

I'd never seen him bare-chested. For the first time, he seemed vulnerable to me. His smooth, tight skin wrapped around the long muscles he'd developed over a lifetime of hard work.
He found a shallow spot and sat, settling me onto his lap, holding my back to his chest. I couldn't stop shaking and it had nothing to do with the water or with being half dressed in a cave with a boy.
"Nothing else matters," Henry said in my ear. "I'm here. Start at the beginning. — Laura Anderson Kurk

It is a world of magic and mystery, of deep darkness and flickering starlight. It is a world where terrible things happen and wonderful things too. It is a world where goodness is pitted against evil, love against hate, order against chaos, in a great struggle where often it is hard to be sure who belongs to which side because appearances are endlessly deceptive. Yet for all its confusion and wildness, it is a world where the battle goes ultimately to the good, who live happily ever after, and where in the long run everybody, good and evil alike, becomes known by his true name ... That is the fairy tale of the Gospel with, of course, one crucial difference from all other fairy tales, which is that the claim made for it is that it is true, that it not only happened once upon a time but has kept on happening ever since and is happening still. — Frederick Buechner

His eyes, usually as black and hard as obsidian were softer now, with the sheen of a crow's wing in sunlight. "You love me anyway," she teased.
"That's true," he said softly.
"Your weakness," she replied in equally quiet tones.
"No. My strength." They made love, this time without the power of their combined Gifts flowing hot between them, yet Martise would argue with anyone that its absence made no difference. There was sorcery aplenty in loving the one you held most dear. — Grace Draven

I love Calgary. It's a great city. I enjoyed my time there, quite a bit. Shooting and filming in that cold could be very difficult, at times. When you're shooting nights, and it's 3 in the morning and minus 35 degrees, that's hard to work in. — Colin Hanks

I was where I needed to be. I wasn't going to regret staying in Pittsburgh or taking the full-time job with Rye Publishing. I loved what I did, who I worked with, and how my future looked. I worked damn hard to make it to where I was. I knew going into my internship that the likelihood of me getting a full-time position was slim to none, and yet I'd impressed the shit out of them and landed a permanent spot. There were no regrets there. And, though I missed the surf, I really did love the city. I loved who I was becoming. Sure, I was lonely, but I had offers to go out - to make friends - I just had to start taking them. I could do that. — Kandi Steiner

I've seen so many of my friends and collaborators struggle and face the challenge of feeling like what they're working so hard to create and put into the world isn't important or appreciated ... it's like being in love with someone who won't give you the time of day. — Kate Brown

A few of the principles by which I live: A good gag is worth any amount of time, money and effort; never draw to fill an inside straight; always keep score in games, never in love; never say 'Muskrat Ramble'; always keep them guessing; never listen to the same conversation twice; and (this is the hard part) listen to no one. — Annie Dillard

You can hardly walk up to complete strangers and say, "Good for you! You've risked banishment and brutality and ostracism just to be together, and I applaud your choice! You're in the vanguard of social change, and even though it's hard on you, the generations that come after you will have an easier time of it because you were brave enough to fall in love." So instead I told them I liked their baby. It means the same thing, but it's more socially acceptable. — Sharon Shinn

After nine nights must come ten and every desperate meeting only leaves you desperate for another. There is never enough to eat, never enough garden for your love.
So you refuse and then you discover that your house is haunted by the ghost of a leopard.
When passion comes late in life it is hard to bear.
One more night. How tempting. How innocent. I could stay tonight surely? What difference could it make, one more night? No. If I smell her skin, find the mute curves of her nakedness, she will reach in her hand and withdraw my heart like a bird's egg. I have not had time to cover my heart in barnacles to elude her. If I give in to this passion, my real life, the most solid, the best known, will disappear and I will feed on shadows again like those sad spirits whom Orpheus fled.
I wished her goodnight, touching her hand only and thankful for the dark that hid her eyes. — Jeanette Winterson

But unlike me, she has a hard time saying such things. She loved me with a passion, but I felt it in her expressions, in her touch, in the tender brush of her lips. And, when I needed it most, she loved me with the written word as well. — Nicholas Sparks

I could only nod as emotions rolled in like a destructive storm. This was it. It was over. My incredible time with this beautiful talented man was up. I had to clench my teeth and swallow hard to mask the loss that threatened to overcome my calm exterior. I was holding on for dear life then he said two words with pure tranquility. — Nicole Castro

For the first time it strikes me that it must be hard to spend your life in exile and finally win your kingdom by a thread, by the action of a turncoat in battle, and to know that most of the country does not celebrate your luck, and the woman that you have to marry is in love with someone else: your dead enemy and the rightful king. I have been thinking of him as triumphant; but here I see a man burdened by an odd twist of fate, coming to victory by a sneaking disloyalty, on a hot day in August, uncertain even now, if God is with him. I — Philippa Gregory

One of the most powerful things I'd learned since getting sober is to love and accept life on life's terms. Alcoholics have a hard time doing this; we're little id-driven crybabies, guzzling and complaining about how nothing in this life goes the way we think it should. Accepting and even embracing the world as it is can be radical, and it can have powerful, positive results. — Michelle Tea

They send a person who can never stay,: she whispered. "Who can never accept my offer of companionship for more than a little while. They send me a hero I can't help ... Just the sort of person I can't help falling in love with." The night was quiet except for the gurgle of the fountains and waves lapping on the shore. It took me a long time to realize what she was saying. "Me?" I asked. "If you could see your face." She suppressed a smile, though her eyes were still teary. "Of course, you." "That's why you've been pulling away all this time?" "Itried very hard. But I can't help it. The Fates are cruel. They sent you to me, my brave one, knowing that you would break my heart." "But ... I'm just ... I mean, I'm just me." "That is enough," Calypso promised. — Rick Riordan

I don't think I've seen that sort of character in a long time in this genre because again, there was a time when you could have quirky, strange characters that you grew to love, you didn't quite understand, you know, and then all of a sudden they became almost cardboard cutouts for awhile. You kind of know the guy, what his deal is - this guy's hard to figure out. He has some strange habits, but, you learn to love him and you discover more about him, where it comes from. — Antoine Fuqua

Dear whoever is reading this,
I wish I could find a way to take all of your sadness away and replace it with happiness. I can't. But I can try. You are worth it. You have entire galaxies within you and an entire life ahead of you. You will do so much and meet so many more people. Keep going. Things will get hard. But they will also get better. Keep smiling. It's okay to cry every once in a while. It's okay to spend time alone. But it's important to keep gong. Good luck.
Love,
A — Emily Trunko

The people were all busy in their cars, listening to the radio, so there was no one to smile at, so I just sent my love to the traffic lights. No one ever appreciates them, all day long, working so hard to turn red and yellow and green, right in time with us to make sure we don't crash into each other. If there was any tiny chance, even the tiniest chance, that they happened to be alive, I bet I was the first person ever to tell them they were special. You are special, I said out loud in my car, but in case they couldn't hear, I cracked my window open. "You are special," I said, to the night air.
And just like that, a green light. — Aimee Bender

I've never had feelings for a girl before, but the first time I do, I'm falling in love, and hard. I guess this is what happens to us men who don't love easily. We love quicker and harder. — Samantha Towle

Three hundred nights like three hundred walls
must rise between my love and me
and the sea will be a black art between us.
Time with a hard hand will tear out
the streets tangled in my breast.
Nothing will be left but memories.
(O afternoons earned with suffering,
nights hoping for the sight of you,
dejected vacant lots, poor sky
shamed in the bottom of the puddles
like a fallen angel ...
And your life that graces my desire
and that run-down and lighthearted neighborhood
shining today in the glow of my love ... )
Final as a statue
your absence will sadden other fields. — Jorge Luis Borges

I know what you're doing," he whispered to Raphael, whose movements only became more fervent, and the thought slipped from the boy's mind so that he became dazed and undone with pleasure, staring up at the ceiling, watching as it blurred and became indistinct, and he felt the rising rush of pleasure, until he cried out in a sharp gasp.
And the pleasure went on and on, as it did, unbearably, until either Raphael took pity on him, or he pushed his Genitor away. Whichever it was, the pleasure that was leaking into pain, stopped, and he was lifted and laid down on the stone, cold and hard under his spine, and Raphael was bent over him, kissing up this time, up to his lips, flicking his tongue at them, and whispering: "Don't question my love for you. Ever again. — Carmen Dominique Taxer

I love this world," he added. "That is what rules my life. When I die, I want to have done all in my power to leave it in a better state than it was when I found it. At the same time I know that this can never be. The world has grown so complex that one voice can do little to alter it any longer. That doesn't stop me from doing what I can, but it makes the task hard. The successes are so small, the failures so large and many. It's like trying to stem a storm with one's bare hands. — Charles De Lint

This hard place in which you perhaps find yourself is the very place in which God is giving you opportunity to look only to Him, to spend time in prayer, and to learn long-suffering, gentleness, meekness - in short, to learn the depths of the love that Christ Himself has poured out on all of us. — Elisabeth Elliot

Kitten,
Letting go of someone who owns your heart is hard.
Sometimes holding on to that person is even harder. I
know I'm not the easiest person to love, but you are.
I'ts not that I can't live without you; it's that I don't want to. There's a difference. We all make choices in life and I choose you.
My heart belongs to you. And I'm not asking for it back, even if you don't want it anymore. I'm just asking for the chance to have yours again. I promise I'll be more careful with it this time.
Love Always,
Jack — J. Sterling

Time is ungovernable, but grief presents us with a choice: what do we do with the savage energies of bereavement? What do we do with the memory - or in the memory - of the beloved? Some commemorate love with statuary, but behavior, too, is a memorial, as is a well-lived life. In death, there is always the promise of hope. The key is opening, rather than numbing, ourselves to pain. Above all, we must show our children how to celebrate existence in all its beauty, and how to get up after life has knocked us down, time and again. Half-dead, we stand. And together, we salute love. Because in the end, that's all that matters. How hard we loved, and how hard we tried. — Antonella Gambotto-Burke

You marry your friends when you stay with your friends. It's hard enough to find a good roommate, let alone a good person you can live with and fall in love with at the same time. You might as well just take your roommate, if you can find one, and marry them. — Ariel Pink

Old England is an imaginary place, a landscape built from words, woodcuts, films, paintings, picturesque engravings. It is a place imagined by people, and people do not live very long or look very hard. We are very bad at scale. The things that live in the soil are too small to care about; climate change too large to imagine. We are bad at time too. We cannot remember what lived here before we did; we cannot love what is not. Nor can we imagine what will be different when we are dead. We live out our three score and ten, and tie our knots and lines only to ourselves. We take solace in pictures, and we wipe the hills of history. — Helen Macdonald

You can't "make" someone your soul mate. You can try but it will always be very hard work. Human relationships are hard even when they are easy, so it's important to be in one with a soul mate. She felt she could learn to love Shane; that she might grow to love him over time. She always felt she could make her mind up and then accomplish anything, but the heart and the mind have different agendas. If she was going to try to make this relationship work, it had to come from her heart, not from 'making up her mind'. You don't have to "try" to be anything when you are with your soul mate because they are looking for who you are, not for who you are trying to be. — Kate McGahan

I think our love was all the better for being stretched out by our necessity to study hard to keep up with our work. To have all the time in the world to devote to love may be idyllic for a summer, but linked sweetness long drawn out is the greater luxury. [ ... ] During these summer absences, I longed for her, and wrote to her, and loved her more than ever, abstinence sharpening the appetite. — Robertson Davies

When he first met Kai, Sehun already knew that he was about to lose entire world. Although at the time, he thought that Kai would try to destroy his world. How can you hang on to something so incomprehensible? How can you keep pouring love into an abyss? An abyss. That was what Kai was. This town was not his home. This house was not his home. Kai was. Being in his arms, having him inflict a sort of beautiful pain was home. Sehun fell for Kai and he fell for Sehun just as hard. — Hyperionova

I know you probably feel like there's no color left in the world. Like there's no light, instead all darkness. But there's sunshine. There are colorful flowers all around us. And for me, you're the only thing ... the only one I see. The only one I've seen in a long time. I know it's hard to imagine, but one day you'll see the colors again. — J.B. McGee

Most people have a hard time confronting their weaknesses in a really straightforward, evidence-based way. They also have problems speaking frankly to others. Some people love knowing about their weaknesses and mistakes and those of others because it helps them be so much better, while others can't stand it. — Ray Dalio

Our culture values independence and isolation far too much, it seems to me
we have a hard time making ourselves part of things, of making ourselves responsible to others, and trusting others to be there for us. Sure, there's pain involved if we get hurt, but there's far more pain in isolation. I love community because God gave us other people to live with, not to pull away from, and I learn so much from others that I can't imagine my life without the learning I've gained from getting to know other people. — Tom Walsh

In war," answered the weaver, "the strong make slaves of the weak, and in peace the rich make slaves of the poor. We must work to live, and they give us such mean wages that we die. We toil for them all day long, and they heap up gold in their coffers, and our children fade away before their time, and the faces of those we love become hard and evil. We tread out the grapes, another drinks the wine. We sow the corn, and our own board is empty. We have chains, though no eye beholds them; and are slaves, though men call us free. — Oscar Wilde

[T.J.] Without thinking, I held them out to her. She stopped laughing, and looked at me like she wasn't quite sure what I meant. I waited, and she leaned toward me and opened her mouth. I slid my fingers inside, wondering if my eyes were as big as hers. When she sucked the breadfruit off, my breathing got all messed up.
"More?"
She nodded, just barely, and her breathing didn't sound right either. I scooped up some breadfruit and this time, when I put my fingers in her mouth, she put her hand on my wrist.
I waited for her to swallow and then I lost my shit completely.
I grabbed her face with both hands, and I kissed her, hard. She opened her mouth and I slipped my tongue inside. I could have kissed her for days, and if she told me to stop I wasn't sure I'd be able to. — Tracey Garvis-Graves

You know, you're a pain in the ass." "Yeah, I know," he informed me. "My kids tell me that shit all the time, though they use different words. And they say it when I make decisions based on the fact that I love them and I want them to live the best life they can, even if that row is hard to hoe. Don't give a shit when they gripe. Won't give a shit when you do either. — Kristen Ashley

Where are you now? What roads are you treading? We have so many new roads now, right across the steppe all the way to the Altai and Siberia. Many brave souls are toiling there. Perhaps you're among them? You left, my Jamilia, across the wide steppe without a backward glance. Perhaps you are weary, perhaps you have lost faith in your self? Just lean on Daniyar's shoulder. Have him sing to you his song of love, of life, of the earth. May the steppe come alive and blossom in all its glory. May you recall that August night. Keep on, Jamilia, have no regrets; you've found your hard-sought happiness.
When I gaze at them long enough I can hear Daniyar's voice. He is calling to me, too, to take the highroad, which means it is time for me to get ready. I shall cross the steppe back to my village and find fresh colours there.
May Daniyar's song resound and may Jamilia's heart beat with every stroke of my brush. — Chingiz Aitmatov

It's hard to explain how much that feeling of the bottom potentially falling out at any moment takes its toll. It makes you anxious, of course, and constant anxiety is impossible for the body to handle. So you develop a coping mechanism, and for us that meant shutting down. Everything we liked or wanted or felt joy in had to be hidden or suppressed. I'm sad to say that this method works. If you don't give as much credence or value to whatever it is that you love, it hurts less when it is inevitably taken from you. I had to pretend I had no joy. It will come as a shock to people who know me now, but being able to express joy was something it took me a long time to be confident enough to do. — Alan Cumming

I'm writing this down, because it is going to be hard for me to say it. Because this is probably our last time just us. See, I can write that down, but I don't think I can say it. I'm not doing this to say goodbye, though I know that has to be part of it. I'm doing it to thank you for all we have had and done and been for one another, to say I love you for making this life of mine what it is. Leaving you is the hardest thing I have to do. But the thing is, the best parts of me are in you, all three of you. You are who I am, and what I cherish in myself stays on in you. — Ann Brashares

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

No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws, and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country. At the same time, that does not mean we just flat out open our borders. We can't do that. — Nikki Haley

I've never really found it hard to stay away from a chick before. Hell, I've never had reason to try. But this time I do. There's something different about Olivia. I want her in my bed. Like, now. But she's ... I don't know. I get the feeling she requires a gentler, more careful touch. She's a challenge.
And damn, if I don't love a challenge! — M. Leighton

He likes those first moments, the first touch of naked skin against naked skin, of pressing into each other, his cock growing hard against Danny's. Each time it is like discovering that he's been starving in some way, a hunger or thirst in him that he's been only half aware of. Holding Danny tight, it's like finding something that he didn't know was lost. Something worth more than anything else in the world. Something he would have perished without. — Rock Lane Cooper

No it was not the novelty, and it was not the danger and the adventure (although these had their charm). It was certainly not a passing whim (if it had been the hard work would have dispelled it in a very short time!). I think there were three chief reasons for my choice of career: First, a real love for, and interest in aviation Secondly, a determination to earn my own money and to make my career a paying proposition. Thirdly, a conviction that aviation was a profession of the future and therefore had room to welcome its new followers. — Pauline Gower

This is your captain speaking, so stop whatever you're doing and pay attention. First of all I see from our instruments that we have a couple of hitchhikers aboard. Hello, wherever you are. I just want to make it totally clear that you are not at all welcome. I worked hard to get where I am today, and I didn't become captain of a Vogon constructor ship simply so I could turn it into a taxi service for a load of degenerate freeloaders. I have sent out a search party, and as soon as they find you I will put you off the ship. If you're very lucky I might read you some of my poetry first. Secondly, we are about to jump into hyperspace for the journey to Barnard's Star. On arrival we will stay in dock for a seventy-two-hour refit, and no one's to leave the ship during that time. I repeat, all planet leave is canceled. I've just had an unhappy love affair, so I don't see why anybody else should have a good time. Message ends. — Douglas Adams

But love truly becomes love only when, no longer an embryo developing painfully in the darkness of the body, it ventures to confess itself with lips and breath. However hard it tries to remain a chrysalis, a time comes when the intricate tissue of the cocoon tears, and out it falls, dropping from the heights to the farthest depths, falling with redoubled force into the startled heart. — Stefan Zweig

I drink because I don't stand a chance and I know it. I couldn't drive a truck and I couldn't get on the cops with my build. I got to sling beer and sing when I just want to sing. I drink because I got responsibilities that I can't handle ... I am not a happy man. I got a wife and children and I don't happen to be a hard-working man. I never wanted a family ... Yes, your mother works hard. I love my wife and I love my children. But shouldn't a man have a better life? Maybe someday it will be that the Unions will arrange for a man to work and to have time for himself too. But that won't be in my time. Now, it's work hard all the time or be a bum ... no in-between. When I die, nobody will remember me for long. No one will say, "He was a man who loved his family and believed in the Union." All they will say is," Too bad. But he was nothing but a drunk no matter which way you look at it." Yes they'll say that. — Betty Smith

I had not known before that love is obedience. You want to love, and you can't, and you hate yourself because you can't, and all the time love is not some marvelous thing that you feel but some hard thing that you do. And this in a way is easier because with God's help you can command your will when you can't command your feelings. With us, feelings seem to be important, but He doesn't appear to agree with us. — Elizabeth Goudge

Many of us humans have a hard time with understanding one simple truth: the surest way to get love is to start giving love to others. Often, when we desperately need some companionship, understanding and warmth from those who are around us, we chose to blame, shout, criticize, accuse, insult and set ultimatums. But in reply, we only encounter with cold walls of estrangement which was diligently built by our own efforts, farcical walls and fences. — Sahara Sanders

I fall in love every time. And I don't really fall in love a lot, but when I do, I fall hard. — Katy Perry

I knew even before I had desire that it would be gnarled and knotted, black and hard, a tree that would never bear fruit, a fish that would never jump, a cat that would never meow. All my life, bitterness and regret, bitterness, and regret. "And yet," he said, briefly closing his eyes, "I was able to imagine the softness and sweetness of love, for a time." He rested his head upon his right hand, in a gesture worthy of a classical actor, and everyone in the Teatro Barbarossa heard his breathing. — Mark Helprin

How many people can you claim truly care about you? I mean, not just the people in your life who are fun to hang out with, not just the people who you love and trust. But people who feel good when you are happy and successful, feel bad when you are hurt or going through a hard time, people who would walk away from their lives for a little while to help you with yours. Not many. I felt that from Jake and I wasn't sure how to handle it. Because there's another side to it, you know. When someone is invested in your well-being, like your parents, for example, you become responsible for them in a way. Anything you do to hurt yourself hurts them. I already felt responsible for too many people that way. You're not really free when people care about you; not if you care about them. — Lisa Unger

I feel the need to fall in love with the world, to forge that relationship ever more strongly. But maybe I don't have to work so hard. I have thought nature indifferent to humans, to one more human, but maybe the reverse is true. Maybe the world is already in love, giving us these gifts all the time - the glimpse of a fox, tracks in the sand, a breeze, a flower
calling out all the time: take this. And this. And this. Don't turn away. — Sharman Apt Russell

Paris answered for him. "Last time he spread the flashing love, Reyes threw up all over his shirt. I never laughed so hard in my life. Lucien, though, has no sense of humor and vowed never to take us again."
"I'm surprised you didn't mention the part where you fainted," Lucien said wryly.
Strider chortled. "Oh, man. You fainted? What a baby!"
"Hey," Paris said, frowning at Lucien. "I told you I hit my head midflash."
Lucien — Gena Showalter

The old don was finding it hard to live in Christian hope and the general trajectory of his thoughts was retrospective rather than anticipatory. He had recently met his first wife in a pub for a drink and he had expected, foolishly and romantically, that they might speak about the love that they had once shared and what might have been had they stayed together, but instead they had talked about growing deaf, their arthritis, and how much time they had left on earth. 'Old — James Runcie

In America, even the critics - which is a pity - tend to genre-ize things. They have a hard time when genres get mixed. They want to categorize things. That's why I love Wes Anderson's films and the Coen Brothers, because you don't know what you're going to get, and very often you get something that you don't expect and that's just what a genre's not supposed to do. — Francis Ford Coppola

For a moment nothing happens. The figure stands still and I stand cold and alive and-
He starts to run. I make my way down the rocks, slipping, sliding, trying to get to the plain. I wish, I think, my feet clumsy, moving too fast, not fast enough, I wish i could run, I wish I'd written a whole poem, I wish I kept the compass-
And then I reach the plain and wish for nothing but what I have. Ky. Running toward me. I have never seen him run like this, fast, free, strong, wild. He looks so beautiful, his body moves so right. He stops just close enough for me to see the blue of his eyes and forget the red on my hands and the green I wish I wore. "You're here," he says, breathing hard and hungry. sweat and dirt cover his face, and he looks at me as though I'm the only thing he ever needed to see. I open my mouth to say yes. But I only have time to breathe in before he closes the last of the distance. All I know is the kiss. — Ally Condie

You're in love with her, aren't you?" I pause. Am I? I sign and clasp my hands behind my head, not sure what to say. "I'm trying so hard not to be," I say quietly, admitting it to myself for the first time. — Colleen Hoover

Hospitality is gold in this City; you have to be clever to figure out how to be welcoming and defensive at the same time. When to love something and when to quit. If you don't know how, you can end up out of control or controlled by some outside thing like that hard case last winter. — Toni Morrison

Hate can be a deeply stimulating emotion. The world becomes easier to understand and much less terrifying if you divide everything and everyone into friends and enemies, we and they, good and evil. The easiest way to unite a group isn't through love, because love is hard, It makes demands. Hate is simple. So the first thing that happens in a conflict is that we choose a side, because that's easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. The second thing that happens is that we seek out facts that confirm what we want to believe - comforting facts, ones that permit life to go on as normal. The third is that we dehumanize our enemy. — Fredrik Backman

Dimitri: "You're burned in my mind forever. There's nothing, nothing in this world that could ever change that'"
Rose: "And it was memories like that that made it hard to even comprehend this quest to kill him, even if he is a Strigoi. Yet . at the same time, it was exactly memories like that that ... i had to destroy him. I needed to remember him as the man who'd love me and held me in bed. I needed to remember that that man would'nt want to stay a monster. — Richelle Mead

My daddy used to tell me 'the first time you fall in love it changes your life forever, and no matter how hard you try, the feelin' never goes away. This girl you been tellin' me about was your first love. And no matter what you do, she'll stay with you forever. — Nicholas Sparks

I was never too interested in high school. I mean, I never went to a dance, I never went out on a date, I never went steady. It became pretty awful for me. Except, of course, I could go see bands, and that was the kick. I used to go to Cleveland just to see any band. So I was in love a lot of the time, but mostly with guys in bands that I had never met. For me, knowing that Brian Jones was out there, and later that Iggy Pop was out there, made it kind of hard for me to get too interested in the guys that were around me. I had, uh, bigger things in mind. — Chrissie Hynde

I like being me, I don't mind that I have a diagnosis. I am who I was born to be. I love that I can be enthralled with things and want to learn all about something that interests me. Some days can be hard. People can be confusing for me to understand. I love time to indulge in my interests. It helps me to cope with a world that constantly changes — Tina J. Richardson

I might screw up, I might embarrass you, I might yell at you, but I will never, ever stop loving you. You're my first born. The first time I held you ... I fell in love so hard it cracked my bones. — Kristin Hannah

It's a known fact that in life, you can't have everything. In my heart I knew I loved them both, as much as possible to love two people at the same time. Conrad and I were linked, we would always be linked. That wasn't something I could do away with. I knew that now - that love wasn't something you could erase, no matter how hard you tried. — Jenny Han

I love Koscielny, I've seen him a lot. He has good leg speed, which reminds me of Lilian [Thuram]. The last time we spoke I told him to work hard and he'll become one of the best defenders in the world. He's at the standard of a Vidic or Pique. I mean that sincerely. — Marcel Desailly

people aren't supposed to be alone all the time? That we need love and affection, and every once in a while, we need a man to make us come so hard we forget our own name?" I giggled. "You're terrible. — Sadie Grey

Winter Grace It is autumn again and our anxiety blows With the wind, breaking the heart of the rose, Petals and leaves fall down and everything goes. All but the seed, all but the hard bright berry And the bulbs we kneel on the earth to bury And lay away with our anguish and our worry. It is time we learned again the winter grace To put the nerves to sleep in a dark place And smooth the lines in the self-tortured face. For we are at the end of our endurance nearly And we shall have to die this winter surely, For this is the end of more than a season clearly. Now we shall have to be poor, to yield up all, With the leaves wither, with the petals fall, Now we shall have to die, once and for all. Before the seed of faith so deep and still Pushes up gently through the frozen will And the joyless wake and learn to be joyful. Before this buried love leaps up from sorrow And doubt and violence and pity follow To greet the radiant morning and the swallow. — May Sarton

...The world gets blessed every now and then with unique souls who though burdened by their invisible crosses, still have the extraordinary strength to forge ahead in life and give others a helping hand at the same time. Despite their tribulations, most of us think they are fine. Even when the weight of their crosses become unbearable, even when they proceed in a breathless manner, we still have a hard time understanding that they are drowning. In fact, we even condemn them for failing to sacrifice more... — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

It's going to be a hard time; we can count on that. But with all the misery, what opportunities to show mercy and brotherly love in our land, which has sinned so greatly against love. And patience! For now is the time when the victors, in the blind triumph of their victory, are likely to make mistakes. But that's not our concern, for we shall only be the sufferers, not the agents of suffering. What a power for peace will lie in our own powerlessness if we can only glimpse in it the sign of grace! — Margot Benary-Isbert

These aren't me!" I screamed in a whisper, two tears slipping down my cheeks. "Whatever you see, it's not me. I'm just a fuck-up who doesn't know anything, not even what he's doing from moment to moment. And I'm scared all the time, and I don't know how to be anything else, except maybe angry and sad."
His arms tightened around me. "I don't need you to be perfect. I don't need you to never make mistakes. I just need you to let me give you as much of myself as I can, and to trust that I will try as hard as possible never to hurt you intentionally. Can you do that? Can you just let me love you? — Amelia C. Gormley

The Authority has said: Dream! But in truth , they mete out our destinies in tiny rations; they've said how far we can go, how long, and where. Aspirations are useless, because to aspire, is to reach. Dream, they say, but not too big. Laugh, they say, but not too loudly . Love, they say, but not too hard. When you find you cannot contain yourself any longer and you imagine things beyond the walls they've built for you, constructed to imprison your desires, and when your heart is filled with impossible things, then, I say, you have achieved true independence. Our Anarchy is not simply a battle of flesh and blood; it is a war of the mind. The time is always now to declare your freedom! — Logan Keys

I love hard work. 'One Man, Two Guvnors' was so physically tiring I ached all the time, but I took a massive amount of pride in the fact that I only ever missed two shows. — James Corden

She loved beyond measure, When I was young I thought her cold. But in time I came to understand that she was too tender for the world she'd been born into, I said. Sorrow gave Dalia an iron gift. Behind that hard shelter, she
loved boundlessly in the distance and privacy of her solitude, safe from
the tragic rains of her fate. — Susan Abulhawa

You have no idea how hard this is for me, but ... maybe, this isn't the right time. Not now, in a vampire tower ... with them all around." He opened his eyes, giving me a pleading look. "Do you understand ... what I'm trying to say?"
I smiled. "You're turning red, did you know that?"
"Allie!" Zeke blew out his breath in a huff. I laughed, released him and stepped back. — Julie Kagawa

If you love somebody deeply and you lose that relationship - whether through death, rejection or separation - you will feel pain. That pain is called grief. Grief is a normal emotional reaction to any significant loss, whether a loved one, a job or a limb. There's no way to avoid or get rid of it - it's just there. And, once accepted, it will pass in its own time.
Unfortunately, many of us refuse to accept grief. We will do anything rather than feel it. We may bury ourselves in work, drink heavily, throw ourselves into a new relationship 'on the rebound' or numb ourselves with prescribed medications. But no matter how hard we try to push grief away, deep down inside it's still there. And eventually it will be back.
It's like holding a football underwater. As long as you keep holding it down, it stays beneath the surface. But eventually your arm gets tired and the moment you release your grip, the ball leaps straight up out of the water. — Russ Harris

When I was a boy, I went to war searching for glory. I didn't find it.
I came here, thinking I'd find glory if I built a ranching empire or a thriving town.
Instead I discovered that I didn't even know what glory was, not until you smiled at me for the first time with no fear in your eyes ...
A hundred years from now, everything I've worked so hard to build will be nothing more than dust blowing in the wind, but if I can spend my life loving you, I'll die a wealthy man, a contented man.
-Dallas to Dee — Lorraine Heath

The thing that's hard about it - the thing that makes it so hard when the person you love has been taken from you, not by something evil you could have seen coming but by random, pure chance - is that you find yourself suddenly living through a history other than the one you expected to live, through no fault of your own. I feel . . . it's hard to describe, but I feel weirdly outside of time. Ever since the accident I've had these moments when I felt like a visiting guest in this world, not a permanent resident. Like sometimes I look in a mirror and I feel like I can almost see through the version of me on the other side of the glass. And sometimes I feel like I can see the history I used to be in more clearly than the history I'm in now - the real history is one where Philip and Sean and I are all together, being a family and doing whatever family things people do, and this one's like . . . like a fake version of events that I've been yanked into, where everything's gone wrong. — Dexter Palmer

Mother I had a beautiful house in Shingdi a vegetable garden Vines of bitter gourd lettuce English spinach and tousled coconut trees Coconuts fell on my darling husbands head One day we made love under the tree Now I was pregnant just like my orchard full of fruits with the love child Oh I ran as hard as I could from the shadow These were shadows of time shadows of the past ... — Mehreen Ahmed

Heartbreak is more than just a particularly hard form of disappointment or failure. It hurts in an entirely different way because heartbreak is always connected to love and belonging. Over time, the more I've thought about heartbreak and love, the more clearly I've realized how vulnerable we are when we love anyone. The brokenhearted are the bravest among us - they dared to love. — Brene Brown

Love is both hard and soft. It is the most believable truth and fiction. It is something we fight for and fight with. It is the yin and yang. It is the most contradictory of emotions, making you believe in both the extraordinary existence of heaven and scorches of hell. If you allow it, a saturation of complexities can destroy it and leave you desperately choking for the remnants, clawing for a miniscule flake of ash of what you had . True love is a rare miracle held in the highest veneration. Blessed are those who even come close its illumination. Only those who are selflessly brave can become victorious and claim this exceptional phenomenon, if just for a memory in time. — S.V.C. Ricketts

And who wouldn't wish that? Certainly everyone here- dressed up as aliens, and wizards, and zombies, and superheroes- wants desperately to be inside a story, to be part of something more logical and meaningful than real life seems to be. Because even worlds with dragons and time machines seem to be more ordered than our own. When you live for stories, when you spend so much of your time immersed in careful constructs of three and five acts, it sometimes feels like you're just stumbling through the rest of life, trying to divine meaningful narrative threads from the chaos. Which, as I learned the hard way this weekend, can be painfully fruitless. Fiction is there when real life fails you. But it's not a substitute. — Sarvenaz Tash

Think long and hard about the way you invest your children's time. Time is treasure. And where your time investment is, there you will find the heart of a child. Invest the majority of his time in entertainment, and his heart will be turned to love of pleasure. Invest his time in peers rather then family, and his heart will be with the peers more than his family. There is a time and place for all good things in balance, but wise parents will steward the treasure of time, and in so doing, shepherd their children's hearts. — Douglas W. Phillips

I love my jeans and my sweats-I'm really just a tomboy at heart. So it's really hard for me to be like Kim Kardashian and be makeup-and hair-ready every time I go out of my house. I'm not a believer in that, you know? On the other hand, when you do wear those sweats, you're like, Oh God, I should step it up a notch. — Britney Spears

I love the arrival of a new season - each one bringing with it its own emotion: spring is full of hope; summer is freedom; autumn is a colourful release, and winter brings an enchanting peace. It's hard to pick which one I enjoy the most - each time the new one arrives, I remember its beauty and forget the previous one whose qualities have started to dim. — Giovanna Fletcher

And I'm having a hard time remembering how I lived without him, how I could bear to look at a world that I thought he wasn't in, and why I thought I could ever love anyone the way I love him.

Because it has been him.

My whole life.

It has always, always been him. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I've always been a very restless person. I work hard, spend too much time looking after my son, I dance like a mad thing, I learned calligraphy. I go to courses on selling, I read one book after another. But that's all a way of avoiding those moments when nothing is happening, because those blank spaces give me a feeling of absolute emptiness, in which not a single crumb of love exists. — Paulo Coelho