Love Myself More Quotes & Sayings

I focused on his eyes and really locked onto them. I could feel myself falling into a world of blue that wiped the chills from my body and filled my heart with warmth. The depths I could see in his eyes were far more than any hallucination could create. I recognized them as the eyes I gave my heart and soul to. They were the same ones that gave me Hunter's whole being and never looked back. There was no doubt in my mind this was the man I fell in love with. I was doing it all over again in that very moment. — L.J. Kentowski

She made me a stranger unto myself, she was all of those calm nights and tall eucalyptus trees, the desert stars, that land and sky, that fog outside, and I had come there with no purpose save to be a mere writer, to get money, to make a name for myself and all that piffle. She was so much finer than I, so much more honest, that I was sick of myself and I could not look at her warm eyes, I suppressed the shiver brought on by her brown arms around my neck and the long fingers in my hair. I did not kiss her. She kissed me, author of The Little Dog Laughed. — John Fante

At her easiest, she was hard, because her brain was always working, working, working - I had to exert myself just to keep pace with her. I'd spend an hour crafting a casual e-mail to her, I became a student of arcana so I could keep her interested: the Lake poets, the code duello, the French Revolution. Her mind was both wide and deep, and I got smarter being with her. And more considerate, and more active, and more alive, and almost electric, because for Amy, love was like drugs or booze or porn: There was no plateau. Each exposure needed to be more intense than the last to achieve the same result.
Amy made me believe I was exceptional, that I was up to her level of play. That was both our making and undoing. Because I couldn't handle the demands of greatness. I began craving ease and averageness, and I hated myself for it, and ultimately, I realized, I punished her for it. I turned her into the brittle, prickly thing she became. — Gillian Flynn

Whenever I love you, I find myself more loving. — Debasish Mridha

I also need to prepare myself for the inevitability of utter boredom: Very often, single people don't do shit. They do nothing, all night long. They sit in a recliner and watch TV. I've probably watched more television than anyone you've ever met, and I don't even own one. Terrible shows, good shows, Golf tournaments in Cancun. C-SPAN. Hours of Oprah. Law and Order. Lonely people love Law and Order, for whatever reason. They prefer the straight narratives. p60 — Chuck Klosterman

I don't really believe in diets. I love food ... If I deprive myself, I'm going to want it more. I snack on yogurt, raw cashews and cherry tomatoes. — Nicole Scherzinger

I've never been good at writing letters, so I hope you'll forgive me if I'm not able to make myself clear.
I've been thinking about you constantly since I left, wondering why the journey I'm on seemed to have led through you. I know my journey's not over yet, and that life is a winding path, but I can only hope it somehow circles back to the place I belong.
That's how I think of it now. I belong with you.
It is almost as if a part of you is with me. I want to believe that's true. No, change that - I know it's true. Before we met, I was as lost as a person could be, and yet you saw something in me that somehow gave me direction again. It was you, that I had been looking for all along. And it's you who is with me now.
I realize that I miss you more than I've ever missed anyone. In the short time we spent together, we had what most people can only dream about, and I'm counting the days until I can see you again. Never forget how much I love you. — Unknown

I lie in a bathtub of cold water, still sweating and singing love songs to myself. I put the gun to my head and cock it.
I think of my Grandma and remember that old feeling of being so in love that nothing matters except seeing and being seen by her. I drop the gun to my chest. I'm so sad and I can't really see a way out of what I'm feeling but I'm leaning on memory for help. Faster. Slower. I think I want to hurt myself more than I'm already hurting. I'm not the smartest boy in the world by a long shot, but even in my funk I know that easy remedies like eating your way out of sad, or fucking your way out of sad, or lying your way out of sad, or slanging your way out of sad, or robbing your way out of sad, or gambling your way out of sad, or shooting your way out of sad, are just slower, more acceptable ways for desperate folks, and especially paroled black boys in our country, to kill ourselves and others close to us in America. — Kiese Laymon

I never thought people actually woke up the way I did that morning. I always figured it was hyperbole and massive overcompensation to say that you woke up grinning, woke up in a state of contentment and excitement for the smallest things. Even while I was in love formerly, it seemed more like a comfortable thing rather than a giddy, overwhelming happiness. Realize, then, that I had never been joined in a mutual state of infatuation with someone else. My infatuations tended to be unrequited, accompanied by a sense of muted sadness. I sat up at 7:00a.m. without even waiting for the alarm, and kept still there, smiling, looking at nothing and going over yesterday's conversations, the fevered symphony of emotion ringing forever in my ears.
I fell back and actually laughed to myself, reaching for my glasses to slide them on as I stretched out my back comfortably in a lazy, half-waking state.
You are in love. — Vee Hoffman

Dear brothers and sisters ... The Lord is calling me to "climb the mountain", to devote myself even more to prayer and meditation. But this does not mean abandoning the Church, indeed, if God is asking me to do this, it is so I can continue to serve the Church with the same dedication and the same love with which I have done thus far, but in a way that is better suited to my age and my strength — Pope Benedict XVI

Since I'm an asshat, I thought I'd have a choice with you, that I'd be able to walk away if you disillusioned me or turned out to be a blood-sucking creature of the night - and okay, I would have bailed if you were evil . . . Or maybe not. Knowing myself, I'd want to save you. But you're not evil. The point is, I'm realizing you're the same as everyone else in my life, only a thousand times more potent, and that has nothing to do with where you come from. I can grit my teeth about what you do, but I can't control how I react to your laugh. I would rather be near you, see you touch everything but me, than be holding any other girl. I like being with you, Love. Playing, talking, fighting, not-touching. — Natalia Jaster

I know this is more than I need, and that I'm harming myself by having it, but I love the pleasure of this experience more than I love the pleasure of doing what pleases the Lord, so I'm just going to go ahead and satiate myself
(iuJ/iua/ingq — Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

When I was a child and told my mother I didn't felt this was my planet, she thought I was schizophrenic or autistic. When later I finished a college degree and started working in different countries, she called me monster and started threatening me. Nearly 40 years later, when I was making a living from the books I wrote based on what I know, and making 6 times more money than she ever will, she apologized. I'm just not sure why or what she was apologizing for. I had already forgiven her ignorance when realizing nobody would ever believe the truth but myself. I had to go the whole way alone. Nobody was going to come with me on this very long, painful and challenging journey that humans call life but for me was much more than that, it was my mission, of changing their whole future far beyond the time when I'm gone. She was never my mother but merely the human body that gave me birth. In that sense, I am a monster, because I had no love. I had to find that too, on my own. — Robin Sacredfire

And then, without any warning at all, he presses his lips against mine.
As his mouth covers my own, I find myself reeling, as if I have been tipped backward and am falling, falling, so that even the stars in the sky are spinning. His lips are warm and soft, the unrelenting pull of his desire for me as strong as the pull of the waves against the sand.
It is not like practicing with Ismae, or even Sybella. It is not like any of the first kisses I have imagined over the years. It is far, far better and more wondrous, and yet terrifying as well, like one of the raging storms that pound against the convent walls in the winter, threatening to breach its defenses. So too does this kiss threaten something deep within me that I cannot even name. — Robin LaFevers

As a rapper, I feel like image is always important but even more so than image, I really love clothes, that's why I don't use stylists. I want to do it myself because I really love it. — Kanye West

I find that when I get casual with my relationship with divinity and when it seems no divine ear is listening and no divine voice is speaking, that I am far, far away. If I immerse myself in the scriptures, the distance narrows and the spirituality returns. I find myself loving more intimately those I should love with all my heart, mind, and strength. — Spencer W. Kimball

My only complaints are two:
that I didn't make myself ready
for you sooner in life, that
I can't give you better,
Love you more. — Jan Beatty

If my brothers and sisters in Christ continue to tell me something about myself that I do not see as true and accurate, I must come to a place where I trust the body, looking at me objectively, more than I trust myself, looking at me subjectively. This is especially true when we are dealing with people who know and love us, those who live and serve in close proximity. Praise God for loving Christian spouses, siblings, and even children in whom both the Spirit of God and a willingness to be lovingly honest abide. — Voddie T. Baucham Jr.

I hate it when you call me, Melody," she said softly. "It hurts. It hurts when you pull away from me. Everything you said before, it hurt me. I hate you for saying them, and I hate myself for caring. I hate more than anything that I ... that it's so hard for me to say how much I love you. — J.J. McAvoy

You do understand," she continued, "that unless I had an object to love
or, more accurately, a someone to love
if I did not have such a relationship within myself, then I would not be capable of love at all? You would have a god who could not love. Or maybe worse, you would have a god who, when he chose, could love only as a limitation of his nature. — Wm. Paul Young

He stopped me with his hand at my jaw, thumb against my chin. "Sometimes, people must adapt. Immortality doesn't make the things we love less important; it means we must learn to treasure them.Protect them."
I swallowed hard and made myself lift my gaze to him, fear and joy and more fear bursting in my chest. — Chloe Neill

I find that when I get casual in my relationships with divinity and when it seems that no divine ear is listening and no divine voice is speaking, that I am far, far away. If I immerse myself in the scriptures the distance narrows and the spirituality returns. I find myself loving more intensely those whom I must love with all my heart and mind and strength, and loving them more, I find it easier to abide their counsel. — Spencer W. Kimball

I just love feeling myself, and moving, flexing, jumping, expressing, dancing and doing movement. I'm in tune with it. I like to express myself with my body, more so than intellectually. But, I am a geek. — Michelle Rodriguez

Bye-bye love, as in songs. All alone now. It was so sad. Why did such things have to disintegrate like that? Why did longing and desire, and friendliness and goodwill too, have to shatter into pieces? Why did they have to be so thoroughfully over?
I could make myself cry even more by repeating the key word: love,alone, sad, over. I did it on purpose. — Margaret Atwood

I'm definitely more of a 'think game' kind of girl. I'll read every single dialogue and codex entry and lore entry. I really do love projecting myself and creating my character. — Felicia Day

I love, I can only love the one I've left behind, stained with my blood when, ungrateful wretch that I am, I extinguished myself and shot myself through the heart. But never, never have I ceased to love that one, and even on the night I parted from him I loved him perhaps more poignantly than ever. We can truly love only with suffering and through suffering! We know not how to love otherwise. We know no other love. I want suffering in order to love. I want and thirst this very minute to kiss , with tears streaming down my cheeks, this one and only I have left behind. I don't want and won't accept any other.
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I don't write as many songs as I used to. But, I find myself writing for social media more - times have changed. And I love photography, so a lot of my creative energy gets caught up that way. — Arlo Guthrie

i have to love myself more than i love him, in order to leave him. — Kay M. Rutherford

I lost myself immediately in one of the books, only emerging when the phone rang.
"Dashiell?" my father intoned. As if someone else with my voice might be answering the phone at my mother's apartment.
"Yes, Father?"
"Leeza and I would like to wish you a merry Christmas."
"Thank you, Father. And to you, as well."
[awkward pause]
[even more awkward pause]
"I hope your mother isn't giving you any trouble."
Oh, Father, I love it when you play this game.
"She told me if I clean all the ashes out of the grate, then I'll be able to help my sisters get ready for the ball."
"It's Christmas, Dashiell. Can't you give that attitude a rest?"
"Merry Christmas, Dad. And thanks for the presents."
"What presents?"
"I'm sorry - those were all from Mom, weren't they?"
"Dashiell ... "
"I gotta go. The gingerbread men are on — Rachel Cohn

I love him, and I love us together more than I love myself. I will do what you ask, but if," Kara swallowed hard, " ... if I lose him, I'll join him in death." Vena resisted the urge to stroke the fine mass of dark curls away from the heart-shaped face that gazed at her so fiercely. The woman who faced her, proudly announcing her ability to choose, was no longer the winsome, pliable girl of the garden. — Anna LaForge

So I told him that I don't look for boyfriends; I look for a person, then if the person happens to be the one then he's the one. And if not, then not! And I was also thinking to myself, about how I will not commit myself to a man more than he is willing to commit himself to me. I refuse to be braver. I choose to be secure. I am brave in so many areas of life and when it comes to a man I would rather he be braver than I. I would rather he commit himself to me in ways that will make my heart know him so well that I can say he swims in my blood and he walks inside my bones. But for me to throw my commitment in front of him, on the ground, to see if it's good enough? Hell will freeze over before that happens. I compromise myself in many ways, because compromise is selfless and compromise is giving. But one thing I will not compromise is my commitment. I have to feel safe to do that. I have to know that I am reciprocating; not initiating. — C. JoyBell C.

In giving our daughter life, her father and I had also given her death, something I hadn't realized until that new creature flailed her arms in what was now infinite space. We had given her disease and speeding cars and flying cornices: once out of the fortress that had been myself, she would never be safe again ... We disappoint our kids and they disappoint us, and sometimes they grow up into people we don't like very much. We go on loving, though what we love may be more memory than actuality. And until the day we die we fear the phone that rings in the middle of the night. — Mary Cantwell

'Santa Sangre' is the picture I love the best, myself, because 'El Topo' and 'The Holy Mountain' I made with my head, and 'Santa Sangre' I made with my feelings, with my heart. It's an emotional picture. And it's more real for me, that picture. — Alejandro Jodorowsky

I want to crawl to her feet, whimper to be forgiven, for loving her, for needing her more than my own life, for belonging to her more than my own soul."

"If he loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime, he couldn't love you as much as I do in a single day."

"...he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."

"If you ever looked at me once with what I know is in you, I would be your slave."
"Be with me always. Take any form, drive me mad, only do not leave me in this dark alone where I cannot find you."
~ Wuthering Heights — Emily Bronte

(Did you love your wife) I convinced myself I did when I married. I willed myself into the appropriate feelings without knowing what the appropriate feelings were. I endowed her with qualities she did not have and then despised her for not having them. Afterwards I might have learned to love her if I had thought more of her needs and less of my own. — P.D. James

I know the moon brought her to me. I know she saved me from myself. Showed me what love is supposed to be. Not the shallow, immature love I used to believe in. Love that was nothing more than hormones and ego. When she kicked the soccer ball at my head, it was like she woke up my soul. At that moment, I knew. As naturally as I knew the sound of my own heartbeat. Knew we belonged together forever. — Jillian Dodd

Unconditional Love is a perpetual emotion machine. It inspires us to include others. The longer I am bathed in its radiance, the more I find myself looking at others with an open heart. I can look past their faults and love them. I can say, "I may not like the things you do, but I love you. — Rosa Marchisella

Courage brought me here.
I desperately tried to dress myself with words.
Yet excuses can no longer defend my walls.

So here I am.
Clueless.
Defenseless.
But I will tell you this,
for this is all you have to know.

I love you.

Nothing in this life is more worth
fighting for than that. — Frederick Espiritu

I shall be your poet! I do not want to be a poet for others; make your appearance, and I shall be your poet. I shall eat my own poem, and that will be my food. Or do you find me unworthy? Just as a temple dancer dances to the honor of the god Gudutl, so I have consecrated myself to your service; light, thinly clad, limber, unarmed, I renounce everything. I own nothing; I desire to own nothing; I love nothing; I have nothing to lose-but have I not thereby become more worthy of you, you who long ago must have been tired of depriving people of what they love, tired of their craven sniveling and craven pleading. Surprise me-I am ready — Soren Kierkegaard

In that moment, I wanted to cut out all my sins from my body and lay them down upon the earth before you. Like pieces of bark they are rough and dead, once clutching onto my very skin, all a part of me. You make me want to strip myself bare and lay myself out to you, I want you to see all my flaws, I want you to know I am not beautiful, yet all the while wanting you to take me anyway. I am composed of things that are dead, I am not a tree, I do not give life, I am just bark, flaws, stitched together with hope for something more. I wish for love, I wish for more. — Joshua Allen

I myself have never enjoyed anything more than writing. I love to live in that world. — Joss Whedon

Writing, then, was a substitute for myself: if you don't love me, love my writing & love me for my writing. It is also much more: a way of ordering and reordering the chaos of experience. — Sylvia Plath

It made me love them more because I knew the day would come when I would also be unrecognizable to myself. — Mary Miller

I can't promise you an ordinary experience, Kate. I wish I could transform myself into a normal man and be there for you, always, without the trauma that defines my life as "the walking dead." Since that isn't possible, I can only reassure you that I will do everything in my power to make it up to you. To give you more than a normal boyfriend could.
I have no idea what that will mean, exactly, but I'm looking forward to finding out. With you. — Amy Plum

I give you my hand, I give you my love more precious than money, I give you myself before preaching or law; Will you give me yourself? — Walt Whitman

By not letting me turn you into something you're not, you've helped me be more of myself. — Aleksandra Ninkovic

Was my sense of being in love not just the result of living in a particular cultural epoch? Was it not society, rather than any authentic urge, that was motivating me to pride myself on romantic love? In previous cultures and ages, would I not have been taught to ignore my feelings for Chloe in the way I was now taught to ignore (more or less) the impulse to wear stockings or to respond to insult with a challenge to a duel? "Some — Alain De Botton

I see myself as more of a student, that I love to get down into the weeds of different problems and try to go through that. I don't mind messaging, but I'm going to default back to the research side of things. — James Lankford

I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy. And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my soul the reading I did as a child. I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same. Books are, for me, it must be said, the most important thing; what I cannot forget is that there was a time when they were at once more banal and more essential than that. When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic yearning for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning that one ever expects to be fulfilled. — Diane Setterfield

I Have Vanished In the early morning, A lover asked her beloved, "Do you love me more than yourself?" "More than myself? For sure I have no self any more - I am you already. The 'I' has gone; the 'you' has come about. Even my identity is gone. The answer is taken for granted. 'You and I' has no meaning. The 'I' has vanished like a drop into an ocean of honey. — Jalaluddin Rumi

You can rely too much, my love, on the unspoken things. And the wry smile. I have that smile myself, and I've learned the silence too, over the years. Along with your expressions, like No notion and Of necessity. What happens, though, when it is all unsaid, is that you wake up one morning, no, it's more like late one afternoon, and it's not just unsaid, it's gone. That's all. Just gone. I remember this word, that look, that small inflection, after all this. I used to hold them, trust them, read them like a rune. Like a sign that there was a house, a billet, a civilization where we were. I look back and I think I was just there all alone. Collecting wisps and signs. — Renata Adler

I love being inside my brain and pushing myself to think in ever more complex ways because I know the ideas are there for the taking. It's all about being focused and disciplined and making use of one's abilities. — Nancy Crow

Clare, I want to tell you, again, I love you. Our love has been the thread through the labyrinth, the net under the high-wire walker, the only real thing in this strange life of mine that I could ever trust. Tonight I feel that my love for you has more density in this world than I do, myself: as though it could linger on after me and surround you, keep you, hold you. — Audrey Niffenegger

For a nymphomaniac like myself, I suppose there could be no job more suitable than prostitution; it is my God-given destiny. No matter how violent a man might be, or how ugly, at the moment we're in the act I cannot help but love him. And what's more I'll grant his every wish, no matter how shameful. In fact, the more twisted my partner is, the more attracted I will be to him, because my ability to meet my lover's demands is the one way I can feel alive.
That is my virtue. It is also my biggest flaw. I can't deny a man. I'm like a vagina incarnate - female essence embodied. If I ever were to deny a man, I would stop being me. — Natsuo Kirino

She smiled. "I don't know. I wonder sometimes, too. Then you touch my face with your scarred hand and read my mind. Your eyes know me. That's why I keep following you all over the realm, barefoot or half-frozen, cursing the sun or the wind, or myself because I have no more sense than to love a man who does not even possess a bed I can crawl into at night. And sometimes I curse you because you have spoken my name in a way that no other man in the realm will speak it, and I will listen for that until I die. So," she added, as he gazed down at her mutely, "how can I leave you?" He — Patricia A. McKillip

In December 1998, I considered myself an expert on love. I was almost a year into a relationship, one that had grown more slowly than I had wished, but once it flowered it was much more stimulating than any marriage or relationship I had known. — Jane Smiley

No, it was simply that I was uninterested in making, as I saw it, a Xerox of some old emotional state. I was in my mid-thirties, with a marriage more or less behind me. I was no longer vulnerable to curiosity's enormous momentum. I had nothing new to murmur to another on the subject of myself and not the smallest eagerness about being briefed on Danielle's supposedly unique trajectory - a curve described under the action, one could safely guess, of the usual material and maternal and soulful longings, a few thwarting tics of character, and luck good and bad. A life seemed like an old story. — Joseph O'Neill

Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan't make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this. — Vita Sackville-West

I do not ask for a path with no trouble or regret.
I ask instead for a friend who'll walk with me down any path.
I do not ask never to feel pain.
I ask instead for courage, even when hope can scarce shine through.
And one more thing I ask:
That in every hour of joy or pain, I feel the Creator close by my side.
This is my truest prayer for myself and for all I love, now and forever, Amen. — Kersten Hamilton

Excuse me, guess I've mistaken you for somebody else, somebody who gave a damn, somebody more like myself. — Jewel

I'll tell you what I love doing more than anything: trying to pack myself in a small suitcase. I can hardly contain myself. — Tim Vine

I have no ideas, myself! Not a one! there's nothing more vulgar, more common, more disgusting than ideas! libraries are loaded with them! and every sidewalk cafe! ... the impotent are bloated with ideas! ... they dazzle youth with ideas! they play the pimp! ... and youth is ever ready, as you know, Professor, to gobble up anything, to go OOH! and AAH! by the numbers! How those pimps have an easy job of it! the passionate years of youth are spent getting a hard on and gargling ideeaas! ... philosophies, if you prefer! ... yes sir, philosophies! youth loves sham just as young dogs love those sticks, like bones, that we throw and they run after! they race forward, yipping away, wasting their time, that's the main thing! — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Yes, it's true that I fell in love with someone and that he died, along with the two other people I loved best in this world. That has been the main thing to know about me, the only thing about me for a very long time, although I didn't know it myself. But there must be more to know. There will be more. — E. Lockhart

You've been striking at her ghost, screaming, 'If you didn't want me to turn out like him, you should have stayed to stop me!'
As his throat worked convulsively, she covered his hands with hers. 'But she can't hear you. So all you're doing is trudging a path that isn't your own, growing more weary of it by the day, wanting more from your existence but believing you're cursed to having less. That is no sort of life for anyone ... '
'How can you have such faith in me?' he asked hoarsely. 'How can you believe in me when I've given you no reason?'
'You've given me plenty of reasons, but there's only one that matters. I love you, Oliver. I can't help myself. That is my reason. — Sabrina Jeffries

Lost Wax"

My love gives me some wax,
so for once instead of words
I work at something real;
I knead until I see emerge
a person, a protagonist;
but I must overwork my wax,
it loses it's resiliency,
comes apart in crumbs.

I take another block;
this work, I think, will be a self;
I can feel it forming, brow
and brain; perhaps it will be me,
perhaps, if I can create myself,
I'll be able to amend myself;
my wax, though, freezes
this time, fissures, splits.

Words or wax, no end
to our self-shaping, our forlorn
awareness at the end of which
is only more awareness.
Was ever truth so malleable?
Arid, inadhesive bits of matter.
What might heal you? Love.
What might make you whole? Love. My love. — C. K. Williams

We have lived too closely, been through too much. I will not leave you. I cannot, any more than I can leave myself. — Sebastian Faulks

I was bleeding but hoped he wouldn't notice. I do this sometimes; a game I personally call, I have my period, let's see if I can hide it! A darkish room and quick condom removal (make it seem like you're just really nice and thorough, and use baby wipes to take it off) and even quicker moving of towels to cover any spots on the bed take care of this-though more than once I then saw smears on the pillowcase. Dirty! I love it. I want to not, like, ruby-shower heavy bleed on someone, but reach inside myself with a couple fingers and write my name on a dude's chest with it. C-h-l-o-e. Smiley face. — Kelley Kenney

Winter again. The summer people have gone. The early morning walks are solitary once more. Fog wraps the ocean and sky like a wet, gray glove. Sprinting through the frosty dune grass, my dog Buddy emerges soaked and grinning. He's become a man-child, his boundless puppy love and mindless exuberance caroming off the walls in a muscular body. He lives by one rule: To be alive is to be gloriously happy. Not a bad way to be, I often remind myself.

Comfortable in the ebb and flow of each other's idiosyncracies and needs, he keeps me company while I work, I join him often in his play. His unflagging high spirits urge me to cram activity and joy into every waking moment as he does. By so doing, I tell myself, I will multiply my allotted time by dog years and dilate the remaining seasons accordingly. A good way to look at life, I figure. — Lionel Fisher

The indolence I love is not that of a lazy fellow who sits with his arms across in total inaction, and thinks no more than he acts, but that of a child which is incessantly in motion doing nothing, and that of a dotard who wanders from his subject. I love to amuse myself with trifles, by beginning a hundred things and never finishing one of them, by going or coming as I take either into my head, by changing my project at every instant, by following a fly through all its windings, in wishing to overturn a rock to see what is under it, by undertaking with ardor the work of ten years, and abandoning it without regret at the end of ten minutes; finally, in musing from morning until night without order or coherence, and in following in everything the caprice of a moment. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Everything just feels so empty without her. She was more a parent to me than my birth parents were. She took me in, fed, dressed me, but most importantly, she treated me with respect. She taught me that my abilities were nothing to be ashamed of, nothing I should try so hard to deny. She convinced me that what I had was a gift-not a curse- and that I shouldn't let other people's narrow minds and fears determine how I love, what I do, or how I perceive myself in the world. She actually made me believe that in no way, shape, or form did their uninformed opinions make me a freak. — Alyson Noel

I love the acquaintance of young people; because, in the first place, I do not like to think myself growing old. In the next place, young acquaintances must last longest, if they do last; and then, sir, young men have more virtue than old men; they have more generous sentiments in every respect. — Samuel Johnson

Love never comes with a brochure of rules and regulations, a prospectus with guides of what is acceptable and what is abominable. It's a standard to follow your heart, and that's what I did and if doing that hurt you, then I'm sorry ... sorry for coming in your life and wasting your time, for causing you an anguish so great that you could not bear the sight of me. Today, I am proud to stand up and honour myself and proclaim to the world ... yes, I loved someone more than myself. I loved someone truly, madly, deeply! — Faraaz Kazi

My dear child,' said the old gentleman, moved by the warmth of Oliver's sudden appeal, 'you need not be afraid of my deserting you, unless you give me cause.'
I never, never will, sir,' interposed Oliver.
I hope not,' rejoined the old gentleman; 'I do not think you ever will. I have been deceived before, in the objects whom I have endeavoured to benefit; but I feel strongly disposed to trust you, nevertheless, and more strongly interested in your behalf than I can well account for, even to myself. The persons on whom I have bestowed my dearest love lie deep in their graves; but, although the happiness and delight of my life lie buried there too, I have not made a coffin of my heart, and sealed it up for ever on my best affections. Deep affliction has only made them stronger; it ought, I think, for it should refine our nature. — Charles Dickens

It's about a love song to myself, and a love song to the universe, kind of like the way that Song of Solomon consists of love songs to God or like the way Sufi poems are erotic love songs to God, I kind of wanted something like that. Because I was getting to know myself more deeply at this point. I've always been on this track where I wanted to be enlightened. — Larkin Grimm

I couldn't catch my breath. I buried my face in his shirt. He was my reason for existing. It was his words that pulled me to the surface. His breath that saved me. And now, his arms that held me within this life, unable to give up. He was my strength, and the love I didn't have for myself. And I couldn't live without him more than he could let me go. — Rebecca Donovan

... I have fallen in love with a painting. Though that phrase doesn't seem to suffice, not really - rather's it that I have been drawn into the orbit of a painting, have allowed myself to be pulled into its sphere by casual attraction deepening to something more compelling. I have felt the energy and life of the painting's will; I have been held there, instructed. And the overall effect, the result of looking and looking into it's brimming surface as long as I could look, is love, by which I mean a sense of tenderness toward experience, of being held within an intimacy with the things of the world. — Mark Doty

My friend Wicker once said to be careful what and how you say what you're really thinking to a woman. After much screwing up in that department with Emma, I've learned it's not what you should hide, but what you say that makes her react the way she does. If I am unable to make myself clear, as I so often do, it's more likely going to go to pot if I try to explain how I really feel. Instead, I rework in my brain what she needs to hear. I don't always nail it, but I'm getting better at it. And it's always the truth even if it isn't how I see it.
Is it deceiving? No. It's being considerate and aware that she is an emotional creature, and that for some crazy reason, craves my attention. I love to make her happy. My jumbled up mess of a mind isn't important in the long run if it just confuses her. So I chose words carefully. When something goes right, I use it over and over again. -Ames — Cyndi Goodgame

When the strong healthy boy, howling at the indignity of the birth process, was put to her breast, she felt a wild tenderness for him, The other baby, Francis, in the crib next her bed, began to whimper. Katie had a flash of contempt for the weak child she had borne a year ago, when she compared her to this new handsome son. She was quickly ashamed of hr contempt. She knew it wasn't the little girl's fault. "I must watch myself carefully," she thought. "I am going to love this boy more than the girl but I mustn't ever let her know. It is wrong to love one child more than the other but this is something that I cannot help. — Betty Smith

Why am I so alone, so hard, so cold? I am so weary of myself! It is eating my soul to its core,
self, self, self! I cannot bear this life! I cannot breathe, I cannot live! Will nothing free me from myself?' She pressed her cheek agains the wooden post. 'I want to love! I want something great and pure to lift me to itself! Dear old man, I cannot bear it any more! I am so cold, so hard, so hard; will no one help me! — Olive Schreiner

Practice self-nurturing, not only to get you through hard times but to guide you into a loving relationship with yourself. When you follow through with a simple act like comforting yourself with homemade soup, bringing home a fragrant flower for your night table, or taking a sweet solitary walk in a beautiful place, then you get an experience of being kind to yourself that can answer all those questions about "what do they mean, love myself?" This question is more easily answered by doing than by thinking. — Dossie Easton

The only way to get better at stand-up is to do loads of gigs, and I don't know. I spread myself pretty thin to get the stage time. I'd love to do more, really. — Peter Serafinowicz

I'm more into the old-school country myself, like Dolly Parton, and I guess it wouldn't be typical, but I really love Linda Ronstadt. — Sara Rue

It was enough to drive me mad. I was no longer myself and yet I was so much more me than I had ever been before.
~Katherine Demure — Gwenn Wright

I think that I have grown a lot as an artist. I have been writing about my experiences of love and overcoming the struggles that I have faced in the music industry. I have so much more to tell my fans, and I know so much more about myself. It is crazy how much I have grown over these past years. — Jessica Sanchez

I love to look at my life and look at what I can do better, how I can contribute more and where I can push myself. — Daphne Oz

The moment I start to feel that sinking feeling of dissatisfaction welling up in me, I know I need to message a friend, give her a call, or post a note telling her what I love about what she's doing. I need to deliberately write down how all the ways she's running confidently in her lane inspire me. Because the more I focus on how her work blesses, the less I'm able to want it for myself. It's hard to hate something that inspires you. — Lisa-Jo Baker

I love Jere more than anybody. He's my brother, my family. I hate myself for doing this. But when I see you two together, I hate him too." His voice broke.
"Don't marry him. Don't be with him. Be with me. — Jenny Han

I believe I love my guitar more than the others love theirs. For John and Paul, songwriting is pretty important and guitar playing is a means to an end. While they're making up new tunes I can thoroughly enjoy myself just doodling around with a guitar for a whole evening. I'm fascinated by new sounds I can get from different instruments I try out. I'm not sure that makes me particularly musical. Just call me a guitar fanatic instead, and I'll be satisfied. — George Harrison

For you see, Captain Flint, I, too, never settle for less than what I want. Or never thought I possibly could. I'm a Redmond. If only you truly understood what this means. So I set out to reorder the world in a way I thought would make me worthy of her love. But my quest has changed me in ways I never anticipated, and I'm not the man who once loved that girl. There's much more to my journey yet. And here's a bitter irony: I've found in becoming heroic, in becoming worthy of her, I've painted myself into an untenable corner. I've more work to do to prove someone's innocence or guilt. — Julie Anne Long

I know I should let you go, should let you walk away from me right now, but I can't do it. I can't. I'm selfish, and I'm in love with you, and I want nothing more than to keep you for myself. — J.M. Darhower

I can't wait." Kian pressed my hands to his lips. "I love you with all my heart, all my being, all of myself. Whatever my mother says, whatever the law says, you are still my intended. I can feel it. Feel it the way I feel the power of Winter Magic in my blood. It is a truth more ancient than any laws, any magic. We can still communicate telepathically, with our minds, which is one magic of love. When you have love for someone, and it is returned, lovers can communicate through the mind - as long as we have that connection, we will never be truly parted. Promise me that, Breena. — Kailin Gow

If I love you more than you love me, I'm as good as dead. Yet I can't make myself take it back. I can't just walk away from you, because every time you pass by me without smiling, without touching my hand, or at least making eye contact, it feels like I'm dying inside. — Rachel Vincent

At last I saw Christ as my Saviour. I believed in Him and gave myself to Him. The burden rolled from off me, and a great love for Christ filled my soul. That was more than fifty years ago. I loved Jesus Christ then, but I loved Him more the year after, and more the year after that, and more every year since — George Muller

When Stephen talked about stalking chamois his whole expression changed. The features became more aquiline, the nose sharpened, the chin narrowed, and his eyes-steel blue - somehow took on the cold brilliance of a northern sky. I am being very frank about my husband. He attracted me at those times, and he repelled me too. This man, I told myself when I first met him, is a perfectionist. And he has no compassion. Gratified like all women who find themselves sought after and desired - a mutual love for Sibelius had been our common ground at our first encounter - after a few weeks in his company I shut my eyes to further judgment, because being with him gave me pleasure. It flattered my self-esteem. The perfectionist, admired by other women, now sought me. Marriage was in every sense a coup. It was only afterwards that I knew myself deceived. ("The Chamois") — Daphne Du Maurier

Only in love can I find you, my God. In love the gates of my soul spring open, allowing me to breathe a new air of freedom and forget my own petty self. In love my whole being streams forth out of the rigid confines of narrowness and anxious self-assertion, which make me a prisoner of my own poverty emptiness. In love all the powers of my soul flow out toward you, wanting never more to return, but to lose themselves completely in you, since by your love you are the inmost center of my heart, closer to me than I am to myself. — Karl Rahner

Yes, I decided, a man can truly change. The events of the past year have taught me much about myself, and a few universal truths. I learned, for instance, that while wounds can be inflicted easily upon those we love, it's often much more difficult to heal them. Yet the process of healing those wounds provided the richest experience of my life, leading me to believe that while I've often overestimated what I could accomplish in a day, I had underestimated what I could do in a year. But most of all, I learned that it's possible for two people to fall in love all over again, even when there's been a lifetime of disappointment between them. — Nicholas Sparks

I'd never hated myself more than at that moment.
But it was for the best, because a love between us would only end in tragedy and she already had her fair share of that. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Loving me to you seems worthless. It aches my heart that I love you more than I love myself. I love you more than you love yourself. — Hans Lindor

I was really suffering from my resolutions much more than from my [vices]. I ought to try and cure myself without making any resolutions. According to him my personality in the course of years had become divided in two, one of which gave orders while the other was only a slave which, directly when the supervision was relaxed, disobeyed the master's orders out of sheer love of liberty. So what I ought to do was to give it absolute freedom and at the same time look my vice in the face as if it was something new and I were meeting it for the first time. I must not fight it, I must forget it, and treat it with complete indifference, turning my back on it as if it were not worthy to keep me company. — Italo Svevo

I love my foot. If I had to send a part of myself to represent myself in some other country, or in some other way, I would amputate my foot and send it wrapped in white tissue on a silk-embroidered cushion. I would send my foot because it is me, more me than I'm willing to let on. — A.M. Homes