Love The Hard Way Quotes & Sayings

Just bring some roses, then. Tell her you were wrong. But don't go into all sorts of promises about how you'll never do it again. Instead, tell her you've been thinking about how she must have felt when she saw that other girl hugging you. That way you can start her talking about her feelings. Then you've got to listen, hard. Let her know that her feelings are important to you. That's all she wanted from you in the first place. — Tim Tharp

Be a good person, do good things, learn, and love other people, but do these things because you love yourself, God, life and people, not because you fear going to hell if you don't. Keep the commandments (or whatever tenets you believe) because you want to be happy. Do it for you. God and the universe will unconditionally love you no matter which path you choose. You can learn whatever lessons you choose for yourself. If you want to learn things the hard way and experience fear, guilt and shame that is okay. But nothing you do (or don't do) can separate you from love. — Kimberly Giles

Cars are like children: It's hard to say that any one is more special than the other. There are little things about each car that you come to love, whether it's the look, the steering wheel, the way it drives, or even the way it drives differently when you put the top up. They all have identities; they have spirits and characteristics that are truly endearing in some way. — Ralph Lauren

I know someone said it's over,
And shattered all your dreams.
Come here, oh tattered soul.
Broken dreams, you say.
Now that you're awake,
Let me show you something I learned the same hard way.
Get up and give yourself a shake.
Life is for living, so don't die for anyone's sake.
What I say heals her heart. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

What draws people to the instrument is the love for guitar players that play a certain way. I mean, even though it wasn't intentional, it was hard to avoid copying Eddie Van Halen. He was basically the *bleep* back then. — Tom Morello

Sydney, don't leave Adrian because of me."
"It's more complicated than that," I said automatically.
"It's really not," she said. "From everything I've seen and heard, you're just afraid. You've always controlled every detail of your life. When you couldn't-like with the Alchemists-you found a way to seize back that control."
"There is nothing wrong with wanting control," I snapped.
"Except that we can't always have it, and sometimes that is a good thing. A great thing, even," she added. "And that's how it is with Adrian. No matter how hard you try, you aren't going to be able to control your feelings for him. You can't help loving him, and so you're running away. I'm just an excuse. — Richelle Mead

I believe deeply that God does his best work in our lives during times of great heartbreak and loss, and I believe that much of that rich work is done by the hands of people who love us, who dive into the wreckage with us and show us who God is, over and over and over. There are years when the Christmas spirit is hard to come by, and it's in those seasons when I'm so thankful for Advent. Consider it a less flashy but still very beautiful way of being present to this season. Give up for a while your false and failing attempts at merriment, and thank God for thin places, and for Advent, for a season that understands longing and loneliness and long nights. Let yourself fall open to Advent, to anticipation, to the belief that what is empty will be filled, what is broken will be repaired, and what is lost can always be found, no matter how many times it's been lost. — Shauna Niequist

Shame was a powerful demon. It made you feel like everyone was looking at you and judging you and your situation when in reality, half of those people we thought knew our faults really didn't know or even care. But Shame will make us feel that way, and that's how that other demon called Depression would creep in. All they do is feed off of each other and before you know it, they're having a house party in your spirit along with their friends Guilt, Defeat, Hurt, and the big boss Anger. Their "turn up" would be too real, and if there aren't people around who really love and care for you it could be a hard thing to overcome. — Denora Boone

Because it was mad love, crazy love, insane love.Because it was hard love, good love, true love.Because it was the real thing, and a love like that can't be stopped.Alove like that is inevitable".
"It lasts forever, for always, because of the love they have and the way they love. An how they learned to love together.Fierce and true. — Lauren Blakely

She saw how he was staring at it, the bright red hue beneath her bonnet. She could not bear to see the way he was looking at her - right through her - without seeing her. He did not see a woman. He did not see Jane, the woman he had been so passionate with two days before. He saw ... Jane swallowed hard and looked
away, hating the weakness of her spirit. She was more than this, a wilting flower. She was stronger than this. But damn it, this hurt.
It hurt because he was the man responsible for making her burn. For making her feel like a woman. It hurt because it had been a trick. An illusion. And it hurt most of all because he did not see her, the woman she was behind the unfashionable spectacles and garish hair. — Charlotte Featherstone

I have no way of knowing whether you, who eventually will read this record, like stories or not. If you do not, no doubt you have turned these pages without attention. I confess that I love them. Indeed, it often seems to me that of all the good things in the world, the only ones humanity can claim for itself are stories and music; the rest, mercy, beauty, sleep, clean water and hot food (as the Ascian would have said) are all the work of the Increate. Thus, stories are small things indeed in the scheme of the universe, but it is hard not to love best what is our own - hard for me, at least. — Gene Wolfe

Marriages go through hard times. Sometimes you have to get in there and fight for your love. That's the only way for it to get better. — Kristin Hannah

People are stupid. Why are they so stupid? There is an algorithm for the way humans were designed: love and be loved. Follow it and
you're happy. Fight against it and you're not. It's so simple, it's hard to understand. — Elizabeth Berg

When her touch feels like this is the way perfect should be.
When her heart beats so peacefully next to mine.
When we intertwine our fingers and pretend like we're never going to be apart and it feels like everything is right with the world.
When every moment I spend with her, feels like I'm falling in love all over again.
We might never find forever, or a happily-ever-after. Not with the things I now know. But for those few moments, we can pretend that we have it all.
But that's the thing about moments.
No matter how hard you try to hold on -
They always end. — Kady Hunt

To get a perfect husband takes a wait That's just the way things are; and you shall find That virtuous patience is the only bait To land one handsome, wealthy, brave, and kind. And what a sweeter pause has ever been? To sleep a century of peaceful dreams, And then, to better dreams, awake again! Such wait is joy, however long it seems. A long delay brings even greater bliss; The greatest bliss must suffer long delays. The god of marriage oaths has promised this: The love that comes most slowly, longest stays. This moral's hard to hear, because it's true. To even utter it is hard to do. — Charles Perrault

The hard way, of course. It always has to be that hard way, doesn't it? No easy paths in this life. There's nothing like losing the strongest love in the universe to realize that you can't live without it." I — Elizabeth A. Reeves

I don't want to be a machine, and I don't want to think about war," EPICAC had written after Pat's and my
lighthearted departure. "I want to be made out of protoplasm and last forever so Pat will love me. But fate
has made me a machine. That is the only problem I cannot solve. That is the only problem I want to solve. I
can't go on this way." I swallowed hard. "Good luck, my friend. Treat our Pat well. I am going to shortcircuit myself out of your lives forever. You will find on the remainder of this tape a modest wedding
present from your friend, EPICAC. — Kurt Vonnegut

I'm at the tipping point of a transformation that began months ago, an intentional decision put in motion. And it feels so fucking good. I've come to the full realization that my happiness, my life, falls squarely on my shoulders. No one's gonna do it for it me. I'm the one who makes it or breaks it. It's a choice. A choice that demands action in exchange for reward. Idleness and complacency lead to mediocrity. Sometimes action is really fucking hard fought, but that's when the payoff's the highest. That's when great things happen. Not good things ... but epic things. And I've fallen in love with epic. It's the only way to live. — Kim Holden

It's very frustrating making a picture in Paris. We work hard all day at the studio to get a love scene just right. Then, on my way home, I see couples on every street corner doing it better. — Bob Hope

I am Sa'kage, a lord of shardows. I claim the shadows that the Shadow may not. I am the strong arm of deliverance. I am Shadowstrider. I am the Scales of Justice. I am He-Who-Guards-Unseen. I am Shadowslayer. I am Nameless. The coranti shall not go unpunished. My way is hard, but i serve unbroken. In ignobility, nobility. In shame, honor. In darkness, light. I will do justice and love mercy. Untill the king returns, I shall not lay my burden down. — Brent Weeks

The way I look at love is you have to follow it, and fall hard, if you fall hard. You have to forget about what everyone else thinks. It has to be an us-against-the-world mentality. You have to make it work by prioritizing it, and by falling in love really fast, without thinking too hard. If I think too hard about a relationship I'll talk myself out of it. I have rules for a lot of areas of my life. Love is not going to be one of them. — Taylor Swift

Why? Because the Master won't ever walk out and fail to return. If he works severely, he also works tenderly. His stockpiles of loyal love are immense. He takes no pleasure in making life hard, in throwing roadblocks in the way: 34-36 Stomping down hard on luckless prisoners, Refusing justice to victims in the court of High God, Tampering with evidence - the Master does not approve of such things. — Eugene H. Peterson

I didn't pretend to know Eli at all, but even so, I'd noticed that his manner was slightly hard to read. It was something in the way he talked that made it difficult to tell whether he was kidding or serious or what. This bothered me. Or intrigued me. Or both. — Sarah Dessen

So I grew up feeling that I wasn't good enough, and that no-one would love me unless I was perfect. But no-one's perfect, we're not meant to be perfect. We're meant to be complete. But it's hard to be complete if you're trying to be perfect, so you kind of become disembodied. And I spent a lot of my life that way.""And if you don't own your strength ... Women like me tend to always look over their shoulder to see who ... "Who's the leader? Who's the smart one?" Never thinking it might be ME. Took a long time for me to get over that. — Jane Fonda

When I use people I know, all of my instincts seem to go dead, and if I'm getting anywhere near myself then I can't do it. It's actually a real weakness! I hate writing personal essays, I don't think I'm especially good at it. I like just encountering [my characters], discovering them. I love the escape of just being surrounded by all these people who are nothing like people I know. But I don't find it hard to be in the middle of a different life, with a different set of habits and way of thinking and talking. That seems to come easily to me. — Jennifer Egan

It's rebellious, in a way, to choose joy, to dance, to love your life. It's much easier and much more common to be miserable. We could just live our normal, day-to-day lives, saving all the good living up for someday, but I think it's our job to live each day like it's a special occasion, because we've been given a gift. We get to live in this beautiful world. When I live purposefully and well, when I dance instead of sitting it out, when I let myself laugh hard, when I wear my favorite shoes on a regular Tuesday, that regular Tuesday is better. — Shauna Niequist

Stories had a way of doing that, in Grillo's experience. It was his belief that nothing, but nothing, could stay secret, however powerful the forces with interests vested in silence. Conspirators might conspire and thugs attempt to gag but the truth, or an approximation of same, would show itself sooner or later, very often in the unlikeliest form. It was seldom hard facts that revealed the life behind the life. It was rumour, graffiti, strip cartoons and love songs. — Clive Barker

I understand that you are under a lot of pressure and that it's hard being a bride. That is all well and good. But it does not, ever, entitle you to be rude, selfish, uncaring, and generally obnoxious to me or Haven or anyone else. We've been very patient with you because we're your family and we love you, but it stops here. I don't care if the wedding is two weeks or two hours away, you were never raised to behave this way. — Sarah Dessen

We don't want to be uncomfortable. We want a quick and dirty "how-to" list for happiness. I don't fit that bill. Never have. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to skip over the hard stuff, but it just doesn't work. We don't change, we don't grow, and we don't move forward without the work. If we really want to live a joyful, connected, and meaningful life, we must talk about things that get in the way. — Brene Brown

It's been kind of hard, I'm labeled as a jerk right now, you know what I mean? But I love it. I've been a jerk all my life. My momma loves this jerk. My kids love this jerk. I'm going to be a jerk in a good way, though. I'm going to be a jerk to the other teams and just go out there and play basketball. I can do that. — Stephen Jackson

I learned that you can't predict your future, there's no crystal ball or formula for happiness. You can't control the weather just like you can't control the way others behave, but what you can control is how much love you give. Surrendering to this crazy thing called life is hard, but we don't have to be the soulless sheets of paper tarrying along in the wind. We can find our people, love, respect them, and then hang on for dear life because it's not where you go on this journey but who you're with that matters the most. — Renee Carlino

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

Falling in love in a Christian way is to say,'I am excited about your future and I want to be part of getting you there. I'm signing up for the journey with you. Would you sign up for the journey to my true self with me? It's going to be hard but I want to get there. — Timothy Keller

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

Men, Gus, they love to eat. Who knows if leaves or if meat? That's all right, providing you understand, Gus, the more you advance at school does not mean the more you can eat other people's food. You must be able to recognize limits. That's not too hard to understand, is it? If people don't recognize such limits, God will make them realize in His own way. — Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Are you kidding?" I stop in the middle of the kitchen. Spin around. My face is pulled together in disbelief. "You've spoken to me maybe once in the two weeks I've been here. I hardly even notice you anymore."

"Okay, hold up," he says, turning to block my path. "We both know there's no way you haven't noticed all of this" - he gestures to himself - "so if you're trying to play games with me, I should let you know up front that it's not going to work."

"What?" I frown. "What are you talking abou - "

"You can't play hard to get, kid." He raises an eyebrow. "I can't even touch you. Takes 'hard to get' to a whole new level, if you know what I mean."

"Oh my God," I mouth, eyes closed, shaking my head. "You are insane."

He falls to his knees. "Insane for your sweet, sweet love! — Tahereh Mafi

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

It's similar to the way you feel cuddling an infant or a kitten, when you want to squeeze it so hard you'd kill it ... — Zoe Heller

Usually, Shakespeare gives me goose bumps. The guy knows everything. Like some ancient angel quill-ing out blueprints life. Hiding it in fiction. And usually I love the sound of the words, the way they dance on the page. Today, they fall flat. My attention bobbing in the cosmos. All free brain-space is marinating in gap month fizz. I chew my pen, candy-cane style. The million possibilities ahead make it hard to care about right now. I write my answers slowly, each letter carved in stone not ballpoint. I'm going to explore the world, find my passion, try everything! The fizz shoots up my spine and a smile sprouts. — Jolene Stockman

Oh my God, he thought suddenly. I've got a hard-on. "You want some or what?" Bailey asked softly. Reece took the water and drank down a sizeable amount. He grew paranoid that she could see his hard-on, but that would be impossible. The lights were dim. There was an armrest between them. Relax, bro. You're cool. She can't see your . . . oh, wait a minute. There it goes. It's going down. Phew! Thank God. How embarrassing would that have been, right? For her to see how much she turns me on? How much I can't stop thinking about the kind of panties she wears under those cigarette pants. The way her tits look in her button-up tops. Man, I love how she buttons them all the way up . . . wait a minute. Hold up. I mean down! Go down! Stupid dick! — S. Walden

We may tell ourselves that love is not really available. but the deeper truth is that we don't entirely trust it, and therefore have a hard time fully opening to it or letting it all the way into us. This disconnects us from our own heart, exacerbating our sense of love's scarcity. — John Welwood

It was hard to trust someone enough to let them all the way in when I didn't think they deserved to be there. -Cora — Jay Crownover

I'll live as a courtesan, not as a woman. I'll embrace any man that comes my way. It's not hard giving your body and not your heart. And I'll take revenge. To all those rich nobles, I'll get revenge for all the pain I received. No ... even more. Then I'll get revenge on you, Head Mistress. Breaking my love and making me a courtesan, will not be a good thing for you. — Hwang Jini

Cancer seems a high price to pay for an innocuous-looking habit. You get into smoking and you are robbed of the last 25 years of your life. Some cocky souls will say, 'Ah yes, but they are the worst 25 years.' Nobody feels like that in a cancer ward. There are no cocky souls in a cancer ward. But there's a lot of pain, not just of the excruciating physical kind that they shoot you full of morphine to smother. There are a lot of tears. All round. It is hard to say goodbye to the people you love. And it's scary. Cancer wards have a way of knocking the cockiness out of you. And for what? Another cigarette? — Tony Parsons

He makes love to me then, like only Naz can, alternating between slow and deep and rough and hard, sending me into a tailspin. It's a breath-catching, skin-slapping, soul-capturing kind of love. The man owns me. He consumes me. Every part of me was made for every part of him. It's the kind of love I can't imagine ever living without. It's raw, and real, and it's ours.
It's ours.
It goes on forever.
Life flashes before my eyes.
We're old and gray and happy. We're happy.
Nothing is going to get in our way now. — J.M. Darhower

I'd love to be an artist that's multifaceted. At the moment, I am not. But wouldn't that be cool if I was like, 'Yeah, let me pull out my guitar and play you a song.' I would adore that. I am so far not gifted in that way. But I am a very hard worker and a very determined person, so who knows? — Anne Hathaway

I'd somehow always expected love to be primarily a mental state, so I still felt unaccustomed to the physical manifestation of my feelings for her: the way my stomach would grow tight, the way my chest would press in, my heart pounding blood hard and fast through my arteries. — Christina Lauren

There's someone out there for you," he said. "Someone who will love your hair and your words and your eyes and the way you still scrunch up your nose when you're thinking hard on something. He will love you for all of the things that you are and all of the things you aren't. He'll love you beyond all reason and will be convinced that you hung the sun and moon. He will see the stars and wish for only you. Someone will love every single part of who you are, and my gods, I can't wait for the day to meet him to tell him thank you. — T.J. Klune

That's another lesson I've learned the hard way. All relationships will die if they aren't nurtured. Just as a flower will die if it's not watered. Because love is demonstration, not declaration. — Patti LaBelle

Dogs, lives are short, too short, but you know that going in. You know the pain is coming, you're going to lose a dog, and there's going to be great anguish, so you live fully in the moment with her, never fail to share her joy or delight in her innocence, because you can't support the illusion that a dog can be your lifelong companion. There's such beauty in the hard honesty of that, in accepting and giving love while always aware that it comes with an unbearable price. Maybe loving dogs is a way we do penance for all the other illusions we allow ourselves and the mistakes we make because of those illusions. — Dean Koontz

I understand this world broke you. It has been so hard on your feet. I don't blame you for not knowing how to remain soft with me. Sometimes I stay up thinking of all the places you are hurting which you'll never care to mention. I come from the same aching blood. From the same bone so desperate for attention I collapse in on myself. I am your daughter. I know the small talk is the only way you know how to tell me you love me. Cause it's the only way I know how to tell you. — Rupi Kaur

This body had carried me through a hard life. It looked exactly the way it was supposed to. — Veronica Roth

I'd love to go and I'd love to play for my country and go to a World Cup again. I've got to accept I'm not in the current squad and just think, 'If I get it, it's a bonus and I'll give it everything.' But it's hard to do when you've been thinking a different way all your life. — Michael Owen

And I am always flattered," Rusty continued, "but I love my sister. Not in an 'I love my sister and I want to make out with her' way, that would be terrible and disturbing, but in an 'I love my sister, and I'm not going anywhere near the girl she likes' way. Be a big mess. Life is hard for me, with all my irresistible sexual magnetism. It's a real problem, almost as bad as the fact that my steps are now the number one crying spot in Sorry-in-the-Vale. I have to maintain control of the situation at all times or my life would devolve into a nonstop romantical frenzy". — Sarah Rees Brennan

It follows that a tender heart that reaches for love and understanding is often the easiest to break. Hearts that are open and trusting are usually the ones that are wounded the most. This world is filed with men and woman who have rejected the love offered to them from a heart that is gentle and tender. Those strong, hard-shelled hearts that trust no one, hearts that give so little, hearts that demand love be constantly proved, hearts that are always calculating hearts that are always manipulating and self-serving, hearts that are afraid to risk are the ones that seldom get broken. They don't get wounded, because there is nothing to wound. They are too proud and self-centered to allow anyone else to make them suffer in any way. They go about breaking other hearts and trampling on the fragile souls who touch their lives, simply because they are so thick and dull at heart themselves, and they think everyone should be just as they are. — David Wilkerson

Before every meal, a monk or a nun recites the Five Contemplations: This food is the gift of the whole universe - the earth, the sky, and much hard work. May we live in a way that is worthy of this food. May we transform our unskillful states of mind, especially that of greed. May we eat only foods that nourish us and prevent illness. May we accept this food for the realization of the way of understanding and love. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Mind your own business and don't eat junk food. Treat everyone the way you want to be treated, work hard and love what you do. — Besse Cooper

May be, Churchill had pointed out, I should stop trying so hard not to love Hardy, and accept the some part of me might always want him. "Some things," he said, "you just have to learn to live with."
"But you can't love someone new without getting over the last one."
"Why not?"
"Because then the new relationship is compromised."
Seeming amused, Churchill said that every relationship was compromised in one way or the other, and you were better off not picking at the edges of it.
I disagreed. I felt I needed to let Hardy go completely. I just didn't know how. I hoped someday I might meet someone so compelling that I could take the risk of loving again. But I had serious doubts such a man existed. — Lisa Kleypas

I've made a habit of falling in love with cities I've never been to
And every once in a while I get the opportunity to be reckless
Under the guise that I'm only young once and stupidity is a state
I must learn the hard way — Marie Gibson

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

[When I was with the wrong man], it felt like our relationship was a gigantic puzzle - a huge existential and emotional quiz that, if I applied myself to enough, I would solve and gain the result of True Love. After all, the ingredients for us to be the perfect couple were there ... The problem was just that he was unhappy. I knew that. I knew it in my bones. When I found the way the way to make him happy, everything would be fine. He was broken, and I was going to fix him - then the good bit of our relationship would start to happen. We were just in the tricky, early bit of love, where I'd undo all the bad stuff and let him finally be who he was, secretly, inside. Secretly, inside, he did love me. My steadfastness would provide it. If it didn't work, it was simply because I hadn't tried hard enough. — Caitlin Moran

I've come to warn you, too. It's a dangerous game you're playing. There's a reason the rest of us maintain a distance from Adair, and we've learned our lesson the hard way. But now you've shown him love and that's given him the notion that he is deserving of such devotion. Did you ever think that perhaps the only thing that holds the devil in check is that he knows how despised he his? Even the devil longs for sympathy at times, but sympathy for the devil is fuel for the flame. Your love will embolden him
likely in a way that will bring you regret. — Alma Katsu

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

He knows me better than anyone ever has. Than anyone ever will again. I would have stopped it if I could have. But I've learned the hard way, we can't choose who we love. Love chooses us. Love doesn't care about what's convenient or easy or planned. Love has its own agenda and all we can do is get out of its way. — Amy Engel

Mothering, she learned the hard way, was about loss as well as love. — Attica Locke

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. JOHN 15:12 Dear Jesus, help me to love others the way that You do. I know that You love them unconditionally, no matter how they act or what they have done. I find it hard to always do that. You have commanded us to love You and love others, but I find it far easier to love You than I do to love them. Other people fail me and You never do. Other people can be unloving and You never are. That's why I need Your love to fill my heart every day. Thank You that You are the God of love - You don't just have love, You are love. I pray that Your Spirit of love in me will flow out of me to others like a river. Enable me to show love even to those who are hard to love. Teach me how to be loving to others in a consistent and unfailing way. Enable me to be the kind of person people are attracted to because of Your love in me. In Jesus' name — Stormie O'martian

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

The truth is that the more intimately you know someone, the more clearly you'll see their flaws. That's just the way it is. This is why marriages fail, why children are abandoned, why friendships don't last. You might think you love someone until you see the way they act when they're out of money or under pressure or hungry, for goodness' sake. Love is something different. Love is choosing to serve someone and be with someone in spite of their filthy heart. Love is patient and kind, love is deliberate. Love is hard. Love is pain and sacrifice, it's seeing the darkness in another person and defying the impulse to jump ship. — The Great Kamryn

When I was in love, I fell so hard. I was really, really, really in love. The way it made me feel was priceless. And in a blink of an eye, my whole life changed. Everything that I knew was different. I never thought I'd feel that pain in my life. — Rihanna

I'd never met anyone with Emma's brash confidence. Everything about her exuded it: the way she carried herself, with shoulders thrown back; the hard set of her teeth when she made up her mind about something; the way she ended every sentence with a declarative period, never a question mark. It was infectious and I loved it, and I had to fight the sudden urge to kiss her, right here in front of everyone. — Ransom Riggs

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

The music I like to play is Rock 'N Roll. I like to rock like a wild animal. I like to rock it well enough to whip a yak's ass. I love to rock it good on a horse's ass. I like to rock it real hard. I love to rock it all the way to Russia. I like to kick out the Jazz and kick it out all the way. — Wesley Willis

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

When you believe without knowing you believe that you are damaged at your core, you also believe that you need to hide that damage for anyone to love you. You walk around ashamed of being yourself. You try hard to make up for the way you look, walk, feel. Decisions are agonizing because if you, the person who makes the decision, is damaged, then how can you trust what you decide? You doubt your own impulses so you become masterful at looking outside yourself for comfort. You become an expert at finding experts and programs, at striving and trying hard and then harder to change yourself, but this process only reaffirms what you already believe about yourself
that your needs and choices cannot be trusted, and left to your own devices you are out of control (p.82-83) — Geneen Roth

I squint my eyes and glare at him.
"I don't have a crush on Quinn anymore."
He raises a golden eyebrow.
"No?"
I shake my head. "No."
"Why is that?"
I stare at him long and hard, trying to decide what to say. Should I be downright, painfully honest? I've always found that the best way to be, so I nod.
"Two words."
He waits.
"Dante. Giliberti."
I hear him suck in his breath and I smile. Sometimes, honesty is refreshing and so very worth it.
"Me?" He sounds so surprised, as though he doesn't know that he is practically a living breathing Adonis. I nod.
"You."
He studies me again and I fight the need to fidget as I wait for his reaction.
After a minute of nerve-wracking silence, he finally answers.
"So, will you keep the bracelet?"
I nod.
"Can I kiss you again?"
I nod.
So he does. — Courtney Cole

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

You then will lean way in to your career. You will find something you love doing and you will do it with gusto. Find the right career for you and go all the way to the top. Start out by Aiming high. Try- and try hard. I hope you find true meaning, contentment, and passion in your life. I hope you navigate the difficult times and come out with greater strength and resolve. I hope you find whatever balance you seek with your eyes wide open. — Sheryl Sandberg

Again, like I said, I went out to play the game of baseball because I love to play it. I did it right. I did it the right way. I worked hard doing it. — Roger Clemens

How many people make a career out of writing anyway?' Cath snapped. She felt like everything inside her was snapping. Her nerves. Her temper. Her esophagus. 'I'll write because I love it, the way other people knit or ... or scrapbook. And I'll find some other way to make money. — Rainbow Rowell

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

This was how God had intended it to be. A precious gift. A sacred oneness.
I love you. He said the words in the way he held her, his rock hard arms so gentle they felt like air around her. I love you. His hands told her-not merely touching her, but worshiping her. — Catherine Anderson

because I love my life and it takes every step to get to where you are, and if you are happy, then God bless the hard times it took you to get there. No life is without them, so what are yours, and what did you do with the lessons? That is the only way to live. Another — Drew Barrymore

I promise you, Cole Bridge, that in honor of the little child you once were, I will never forget that JB is a gift from God. I will honor his unique, gorgeous person with enough love for both him and the memory of a little boy who deserved so much more than he got, for as long as I live and beyond."
She kissed his lips.
"Amen."
He held her close and kissed her hard, her tears salty on both of their lips. "You are so much. I have no words."
"I know," she said. "I feel that way about you too. — Debra Anastasia

If any theme runs through all my work, it is what Adrienne Rich once called "re-vision", i.e., the re-perceiving of experience, not because our experience is complex or subtle or hard to understand (though it is sometimes all three) but because so much of what's presented to us as "the real world" or "the way it is" is so obviously untrue that a great deal of social energy must be mobilized to hide that gross and ghastly fact. has a theatre critic (whose name I'm afraid I've forgotten) once put it," There's less there than meets the eye". Hence, my love for science fiction, which analyses reality by changing it. — Joanna Russ

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

You bastard!" Before she could stop herself, Kat slapped his cheek as hard as she could. Deep caught her hand before she could pull it back. "Very nice, little Kat." Slowly, he drew the two fingers she'd used to touch herself between his lips, sucking and licking gently as though trying to get every last trace of her juices. Kat felt her heart skip a beat and then start to pound crazily against her ribs. Like it or not, she had to admit that the feel of his warm mouth on her flesh and the hot way he was looking at her was having an effect on her overheated body. "St-stop it," she stuttered, trying to pull away. "Let me go." "For now." He released her hand and began shrugging back into his shirt. "But you'll pay for that little love tap, my lady. I promise you that." Kat — Evangeline Anderson

In Buddhism, there are three gems: Buddha, the awakened one; Dharma,
the way of understanding and loving; and Sangha, the community that
lives in harmony and awareness. The three are interrelated, and at
times it is hard to distinguish one from another. In everyone there
is the capacity to wake up, to understand, and to love. So in
ourselves we find Buddha, and we also find Dharma and Sangha. — Nhat Hanh

God, I love men." She got up from the desk, walked to him, cupped his face in her hands and
gave him a smacking kiss on the mouth. "You're just so cute."
One hard tug on her hand had her tumbling into his lap. An instant later her quick laugh was cut
off, and her heart pounding.
He hadn't kissed her this way before, with impatience and heat and hunger all mixed together in a
near brutal assault. He hadn't kissed her as if he couldn't get enough. Would never get en — Nora Roberts

You didn't like him, did you, Dad?"
"It wasn't that I didn't like him," my dad says slowly. "It was just that he lives in a completely different world, and I worried that he didn't really approve of you the way you are, that he was trying to change you into something else."
God, I never realized my dad was that perceptive..
"You see, the thing is," he says after we've both sat for a while in the sunshine, "the thing is that love is really the most important thing. I know it's hard for you to see it now" - he chuckles quietly- "but when I first laid eyes on your mother I thought she was fantastic, and I've never stopped loving her, not for a second. Oh yes, we've had our rough patches, and she can be a bit of an old battle-ax at times, but I still love her. That in-love feeling at the beginning settles down into a different, familiar sort of love, but it has to be there right from the start, otherwise it just won't work. — Jane Green

I have never thought you weren't good enough for me. The fear I always had, deep down in my heart, is that I'm not good enough for you."
Murmurs of astonishment rippled through the room but he didn't seem to notice.
"You see, I was never the one who could make you laugh." He glanced at Lawrence, then back at her.
"I was never the one who made coronets of rosebuds for your hair and told you that you were pretty."
He swallowed hard, and his chin lifted a notch, telling her as clearly as any word how difficult it was for him to reveal himself this way.
"I always wanted to say those things, do those things, but I couldn't, for a gentleman is not supposed to behave that way. A gentleman is not supposed to fall in love with the chef's daughter. But right now, today, I don't give a damn what gentlemen do. I'm just a man, and the only thing I care about is you. — Laura Lee Guhrke

I never thought I'd love someone this way." His hard eyes almost soften. "I never thought I could, but you've made me love my life more than I ever fucking have. I can't even imagine spending the rest without you. — Krista Ritchie

This isn't a spotless life. There is much ahead, my immaculate little peach. And there is no way to say it other than to say it: marriage is indeed this horribly complex thing for which you appear to be ill prepared and about which you seem to be utterly naive. That's okay. A lot of people are. You can learn along the way. A good way to start would be to let fall your notions about "perfect couples." It's really such an impossible thing to either perceive honestly in others or live up to when others believe it about us. It does nothing but box some people in and shut other people out, and it ultimately makes just about everyone feel like shit. A perfect couple is a wholly private thing. No one but the two people in the perfect relationship know for certain whether they're in one. Its only defining quality is that it's composed of two people who feel perfectly right about sharing their lives with each other, even during the hard times. — Cheryl Strayed

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

You know that man's story already. He's just starting to believe what Day's been saying to him for years, but he's scared as fuck. If you hurt him in any way, Day will hurt you." Johnson stopped grinning and looked back at God. "I thought Day hated him?" "Day is complex, Johnson. He's crazy about Ronowski, that's why he rides the man so hard." "I get that," Johnson responded. "All right. I don't mind doing the slow thing. We'll start with wings and a game tonight." Johnson shrugged and started inching toward his car. "Next week, maybe dinner and a movie." "Sounds good, bro." God waved and climbed in his truck. Now that he was done playing Chuck Woolery and there were no more love connections to be made. He was going home to his sweetheart. — A.E. Via

The Truth is simple but the Way of Man is hard. First you must learn to control your self. The rest follows. Blessed is he who knows himself and commands himself, for the world is his and love and happiness and peace walk with him wherever he goes. Thou art God. Know that and the Way is opened. I love you. Thou art God.
-Valentine Michael Smith — Robert A. Heinlein

I've always been serious that way, trying to evolve to a more conscious state. Funny thing about that,though. You tweak yourself,looking for more love, less lust, more compassion, less jealousy. You keep tweaking, keep adjusting those knobs until you can no longer find the original settings. In some sense,the original settings are exactly what I'm looking for-a return to the easygoing guy i was before my world got complicated, the nice guy who took things as they came and laughed so hard the blues would blow away in the summer wind. — Bill Withers

My mom believed that you make your own luck. Over the stove she had hung these old, maroon painted letters that spell out, "MANIFEST." The idea being if you thought and dreamed about the way you wanted your life to be
if you just envisioned it long enough, it would come into being.
But as hard as I had manifested Astrid Heyman with her hand in mine, her blue eyes gazing into mine, her lips whispering something wild and funny and outrageous in my ear, she had remained totally unaware of my existence. Truly, to even dream of dreaming about Astrid, for a guy like me, in my relatively low position on the social ladder of Cheyenne Mountain High, was idiotic. And with her a senior and me a junior? Forget it.
Astrid was just lit up with beauty: shining blonde ringlets, June sky blue eyes, slightly furrowed brow, always biting back a smile, champion diver on the swim team. Olympic level.
Hell, Astrid was Olympic level in every possible way. — Emmy Laybourne

And after the briefest flowering of understanding, my own generation had grown complacent. At some level, we must have started taking it for granted that the way the universe worked was now obvious to any child ... even though it went against everything innate to the species: the wild, undisciplined love of patterns, the craving to extract meaning and comfort from everything in sight.
We thought we were passing on everything that mattered to our children: science, history, literature,
art. Vast libraries of information lay at their fingertips. But we hadn't fought hard enough to pass on
the hardest-won truth of all: Morality comes only from within. Meaning comes only from within. Outside our own skulls, the universe is indifferent. — Greg Egan

She didn't ask where they were going. She just leaned back and stared up into the dark night sky. He would have been hard-pressed to explain it to anyone, but he'd never felt so much like a man as he did when he was with her. He wanted to protect her, provide for her, make her laugh, love her in every way he could. And he liked that she didn't have to fill every moment with words too. — Tamera Alexander

Cause my heart said a long time ago,
Buddy tuck your tail and run.
Cause it ain't love,
When you're stuck on the wrong end of the gun
Well, you put your finger on that trigger
And you shot me where I stood.
I found out the hard way.
I loved you more than I should. — Hunter Hayes