Loved And Taken Quotes & Sayings

But it's like life, isn't it? We know death is coming. And yet we always see our loved ones as taken away from us, instead of given to us for whatever time they have. — Graham Joyce

I mean to tell you, the Law's notion of justice is more cold-blooded than any outlaw I ever knew. And I mean 'outlaw,' not criminal. 'Criminal' doesn't distinguish between guys like men and the guys who own the banks and insurance companies and stock markets, who own the factories and coal mines and oil fields, who own the goddamn Law. I once said to John that being an outlaw was about the only way left for a man to hold on to his self-respect, and he said Ain't that the sad truth. The girls laughed along with us because they knew it wasn't a joke ... John got the publicity because he loved it ... he carried on like the whole thing was an adventure movie and he was Douglas Fairbanks. He wanted to to be a 'star.' That's how he was. Not me. I never even liked having my picture taken. All I ever wanted was to show the bastards who own the law that it didn't mean they owned me. — James Carlos Blake

These are the things in which I was so helplessly caught up, the waves that took me, what I loved. When light filled my eyes and I was restless and could move, I knew not what all the color was about, but only that I had a passion to see. And now that I am still, I pass on to you my liveliness and my life, for you will be taken, as once I was, and although you must fight beyond your capacity to fight and feel beyond your capacity to feel, remember that it ends in perfect peace, and you will be as still and content as am I, for whom centuries are not even seconds. — Mark Helprin

Couples in distress too often turn to solutions that can be summed up by "You do your thing and I'll do my thing" or "You take care of yourself and I'll take care of myself." We hear pop psychology pronouncements such as "I'm not ready to be in a relationship" and "You have to love yourself before anyone can love you."

Is any of this true? Is it really possible to love yourself before someone ever loves you?

Think about it. How could this be true? If it were true, babies would come into this world already self-loving or self-hating. And we know they don't. In fact, human beings don't start by thinking anything about themselves, good or bad. We learn to love ourselves precisely because we have experienced being loved by someone. We learn to take care of ourselves because somebody has taken care of us. — Stan Tatkin

This time, the anger in her voice wasn't there, and the tears were beginning to overflow her lower lids, starting their slow tracks down her cheeks. She looked old, and tired, and like the woman I'd only ever seen in pictures taken before I was even born. She looked like someone who could have loved me. — Mira Grant

Before he loved you, I suffered alongside him ... I was his son before he even met you ... Don't we need to be taken care of, too? "With all that money, the chicken coop [of relatives] gets all mixed up and the family gets warped," Jessica says. — Hector Tobar

Truth is, something that I thought was perfect was taken away from me, and I never wanted perfect again. I wanted middle of the road, stuff I didn't care about so that I couldn't lose anything I really loved ever again. — Cecelia Ahern

I love you, June, and you know how acutely, how desperately. You know that no one can say or do anything to shake my love. I have taken you into myself, whole. You need have no fear of being unmasked, only loved. — Anais Nin

Tess retreated toward the back of the room. How could Imogen have done this to all of them? But she knew the answer as well as she knew the question. Imogen had eloped because, even if Draven Maitland did not love Imogen the way Romeo loved Juliet, Imogen herself was every bit as passionate as the Shakespearean heroine. More, perhaps. She had simply reached out and taken what she wanted. She was no passive observer. Although, Tess reminded herself, naturally Imogen will be a great deal happier and longer-lived than Juliet. — Eloisa James

I realize it's commonplace for parents to say to their child sternly, 'I love you, but I don't always like you.' But what kind of love is that? It seems to me that comes down to, 'I'm not oblivious to you - that is, you can still hurt my feelings - but I can't stand having you around.' Who wants to be loved like that? Given a choice, I might skip the deep blood tie and settle for being liked. I wonder if wouldn't have been more moved if my own mother had taken me in her arms and said, 'I like you.' I wonder if just enjoying your kid's company isn't more important. — Lionel Shriver

One I love is taken from me, we will never walk together over the fields of earth, never hear the birds in the morning. Oh, how I have lived with you and loved you, and now you are gone away. Gone where I cannot follow, until I have finished all my days. — Victoria Hanley

He was without any comforts of God - no feeling that God loved him - no
feeling that God pitied him - no feeling that God supported him. God was his
sun before - now that sun became all darkness ... He was without God - he
was as if he had no God. All that God had been to him before was taken from
him now. He was Godless - deprived of his God. He had the feeling of the
condemned, when the Judge says: "Depart from me, ye cursed," "who shall
be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and
from the glory of his power." He felt that God said the same to him. Ah! This is
the hell which Christ suffered. The ocean of Christ's sufferings is
unfathomable ... He was forsaken in the [place] of sinners. If you close with him
as your surety, you will never be forsaken ... "My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?" [The answer?] For me - for me. — Robert Murray McCheyne

My arms were taken away from me, she sang. I was punished for clinging. I clung. I clutched all those I loved; I clutched at the lovely moments of life; my hands closed upon every full hour. My arms were always tight and craving to embrace and hold the light, the wind, the sun, the night, the whole world. I wanted to caress, to heal, to rock, to lull, to surround, to encompass. And I strained and I held so much that they broke; they broke away from me. Everything eluded me then.
I was condemned not to hold. — Anais Nin

It had been, in Robin's view, the most perfect proposal, ever, in the history of matrimony. He had even had a ring in his pocket, which she was now wearing; a sapphire with two diamonds, it fitted perfectly, and all the way into town she kept staring at it on her hand as it rested on her lap. She and Matthew had a story to tell now, a funny family story, the kind you told your children, in which his planning (she loved that he had planned it) went awry, and turned into something spontaneous. She loved the tramps, and the moon, and Matthew, panicky and flustered, on one knee; she loved Eros, and dirty old Piccadilly, and the black cab they had taken home to Clapham. She — Robert Galbraith

For the first time in my life, a voice went off in my head:'You have no power over what happens in your life. Drugs dictate exactly what you're going to do. You've taken your hands off the steering wheel, and you're going wherever the drug world takes you.'
That had never changed. The feeling would well up inside of me, and no matter how much I loved my girl or my band or my friends or my family, when that siren song 'Go get high now' started playing in my head, I was off. — Anthony Kiedis

The essence of true love is mutual recognition-two individuals seeing each other as they really are. We all know that the usual approach is to meet someone we like and put our best self forward, or even at times a false self, one we believe will be more appealing to the person we want to attract. When our real self appears in its entirety, when the good behavior becomes too much to maintain or the masks are taken away, disappointment comes. All too often individuals feel, after the fact-when feelings are hurt and hearts are broken-that it was a case of mistaken identity, that the loved one is a stranger. They saw what they wanted to see rather than what was really there. — Bell Hooks

Sometime during the night, my husband's heart had stopped
beating, and I was certain that mine would break in two. It had taken
years of marriage and a bout with cancer, but we'd finally discovered
the joy of a good relationship. David had loved me completely and I
had learned what it was to truly love him in return.
And now?
Now, I had to learn how to live without him. — Mary Potter Kenyon

She absorbed the terror and beauty of him and his world. Of every moment over the past days. All of it, filling her up like the first breath she'd ever taken. And never had she loved life more. — Veronica Rossi

From depression to ceiling fans, I've been through it all. I've taken almost every step that life has to offer and invariably I've found several different endings to my Choose Your Own Adventure stories. I've lived, loved, sacrificed and scraped for this existence, this paltry little city state I call my time so far. And by God, I wouldn't change a single frame of this movie. — Corey Taylor

We find ourselves more taken with the running up and down, the games, and puerile simplicities of our children, than we do, afterward, with their most complete actions; as if we had loved them for our sport, like monkeys, and not as men. — Michel De Montaigne

Father, brother, lover - he'd never really declared himself any of them. Certainly not the lover part, thought if Celaena had been another sort of girl, and if Arobynn had raised her differently , perhaps it might have come to that. He loved her like family, yet he put her in the most dangerous positions. He nurtured and educated her, yet he'd obliterated her innocence the first time he'd made her end a life. He'd given her everything, but he'd also taken everything away. She could no sooner sort out her feelings toward the King of the Assassins that she could count the stars in the sky. — Sarah J. Maas

By my love for you. I realized I loved you more than life itself, and I would rather give myself into your power than live without you. Nothing the magic could do to me could be worse than living without you. I was willing to give it all over to you. I offered the power everything I have. All of my love for you. Once I realized how much I loved you, I was willing to be yours on any terms. I understood that there could be nothing for the magic to harm. I'm already devoted to you; it didn't need to change me. I was protected, because I have already been untouched by your love. I had utter faith that you felt the same, and had no fear of what would happen. Had I had any doubt, the magic would have latched on to that crack and taken me, but I had no doubt. My love for you is smooth and seamless. My love for you protected me from the magic. — Terry Goodkind

Anna Sergeyevna looked at Bazarov. A bitter smile played over his pale features. "This man loved me!" she thought - and she felt sorry for him and held out her hand to him in sympathy.
But he understood her.
"No!" he said and took a step backwards. "I'm a poor man but I've never yet taken charity. Goodbye and good luck. — Ivan Turgenev

I loved school. But when I started 'Party of Five' in the fifth grade, I was taken out of school and tutored on the set. — Lacey Chabert

And I wasn't old enough to be wise, so I loved her more, not less, because I knew she would be taken from me soon. — Naomi Novik

You know at this point you have everything you need. It's available to you from the inside and you see you are supported in many ways. You realize that there is more to this dimension, to this reality, than you have seen before. You see you are being taken care of, you are being loved, you are being looked after. All that's needed is to go inside, become still and listen. — Paul Lowe

Consolation All are not taken; there are left behind Living Beloveds, tender looks to bring And make the daylight still a happy thing, And tender voices, to make soft the wind: But if it were not so - if I could find No love in all the world for comforting, Nor any path but hollowly did ring Where "dust to dust" the love from life disjoined, And if, before those sepulchers unmoving I stood alone (as some forsaken lamb Goes bleating up the moors in weary dearth) Crying "Where are ye, O my loved and loving?" - I know a Voice would sound, "Daughter, I am. Can I suffice for Heaven and not for earth? — Dan Pollock

The thing you had had and loved and taken for granted caught up with you all at once and for no sensible reason suddenly cost more than you could afford. — Ann Brashares

From THE DEVIL YOU KNOW-
She wanted him too. He could see it in the rapid rise of her breasts. He could smell her budding arousal and would relish bringing her to full bloom. God, how he loved this dance! She had taken the first tentative steps, yet she still fought her desire, refused to give in to it, but he would lead her now. He was a master ... and a ruthless bastard. — Victoria Vane

One of the basic needs of every human being is the need to be loved, to have our wishes and feelings taken seriously, to be validated as people who matter. — Harold S. Kushner

It was astonishing, really, the quality of life she was able to lead in that crippled body, and watching her during the three years of her paralysis, I made another discovery about love. Mama's love had always been the kind that acted itself out with soup pot and sewing basket. But now that these things were taken away, the love seemed as whole as before. She sat in her chair at the window and loved us. She loved the people she saw in the street - and beyond: her love took in the city, the land of Holland, the world. And so I learned that love is larger than the walls that shut it in. M — Corrie Ten Boom

Soon after this incident the court rose. As I was being taken from the courthouse to the prison van, I was conscious for a few brief moments of the once familiar feel of a summer evening out-of-doors. And, sitting in the darkness of my moving cell, I recognized echoing in my tired brain, all the characteristic sounds of a town I'd loved, and of a certain hour of the day which I had always particularly enjoyed. The shouts of newspaper boys in the already languid air, the last calls of birds in the public garden, the cries of sandwich vendors, the screech of streetcars at the steep corners of the upper town, and that faint rustling overhead as darkness sifted down upon the harbor. All these sounds made my return to prison like a blind man's journey along a route whose every inch he knows by heart. — Albert Camus

It was entirely taken for granted that there wasn't any lying in our family, and I was advanced in adolescence before I realized that in plenty of homes where I played with schoolmates, and went to their parties, children lied to their parents and parents lied to their children and to each other. It took me a long time to realize that these very same everyday lies, and the stratagems and jokes and tricks and dares that went with them, were in fact the basis of the scenes I so well loved to hear about and hoped for and treasured in the conversation of adults. My instinct - the dramatic instinct - was to lead me, eventually, on the right track for a storyteller: the scene was full of hints, pointers, suggestions, and promises of things to find out and know about human beings.I had to grow up and learn to listen for the unspoken as well as the spoken - and to know a truth, I also had to recognize a lie. — Eudora Welty

He lifted his gaze to the framed photograph of Tanya and him taken on their wedding day. God, she had been lovely. Her smile had come through her eyes straight from her heart. He had known unequivocally that she loved him. He believed to this day that she had died knowing that he loved her. How could she not know? He had dedicated his life to never letting her doubt it. — Sandra Brown

He didn't say anything, which daunted her for a moment, but then she saw that his eyes were warm. So she said, tentatively:
"You came for me."
"Yes."
"And took care of me when I was ill."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I love you."
Without moving a muscle, she let his words sink in. Reverberate. Settle in her bones. Was this much happiness even possible? Joy so great one couldn't even smile?
"Say it again."
"I love you."
"Again."
"I love you, Livia. I've loved you for weeks - for months - quite possibly from the moment I met you. But it's taken me far too long to understand that. Understand myself."
"Can you say it one more time?"
"Yes. I'll be saying it every day for the rest of my life, if you'll let me. I love you. — Lisa Berne

Maybe it's because we innately know that everything is impermanent that we so desperately cling to it.
But cling we do.
We know that our youth vanishes that we and our loved one will die one day, that whatever we have accumulated can easily be taken away from us, that one day our skills might not be wanted, that a day may come when our love might not be reciprocated. But we go on clinging.
Everywhere we turn we are faced with impermanence. (..)
The more we cling - of course - the more pain we feel as things fade, disappear, die around us.
And sometimes the more we cling, the more these things happen. (..)
The key to being able to let go of all the stuff you're holding on to is knowing that you'll be okay if you don't have it.
And that's the truth.
You can survive with very little. And though the passing of people and things can be painful, you will survive. — John C. Parkin

There were six dolls to be taken up and dressed every morning, for Beth was a child still, and loved her pets as well as ever. Not one whole or handsome one among them; all were outcasts till Beth took them in; for, when her sisters outgrew these idols, they passed to her ... Beth cherished them all the more tenderly for that very reason, and set up a hospital for infirm dolls. No pins were ever stuck into their cotton vitals; no harsh words or blows were ever given them; no neglect ever saddened the heart of the most repulsive: but all were fed and clothed, nursed and caressed, with an affection which never failed. — Louisa May Alcott

I loved reading when I was young. I was just completely taken by stories. And I remember taking that into English literature at school and taking that into Shakespeare and finding that opened up a whole world of self-expression to me that I didn't have access to previously. — Chiwetel Ejiofor

I have of sorrow so great wound That joy get I never none, Now that I see my lady bright, That I have loved with all my might, Is from me dead, and is agone. Alas, Death, what aileth thee, That thou should'st not have taken me, When thou took my lady sweet, That was so fair, so fresh, so free, So good, that men may well say Of all goodness she had no meet! Right on this same, as I have said Was wholly all my love laid For certes she was, that sweet wife, My suffisaunce, my lust, my life, Mine hap, mine health and all my bless, My world's welfare and my goddess, And I wholly hers, and everydel. — Anya Seton

After the September 11th tragedy in New York City, people began to tell others what their loved ones, who had been trapped in the twin towers in New York, had said to them in frantic telephone conversations or email messages. Those who received calls from mobile phones from the doomed planes also told their stories. Some re-listened to messages left on answerphones. And as they shared their experiences, it was immediately evident that the same three words kept coming up time and time again. Those words did not refer to size of salary or bonuses, nor to the type of car recently purchased or expensive holidays taken. No. Lovers said them to lovers, husbands to wives, friends to friends and parents to kids: 'I love you.' 'Tell Suzanne, I love her. — Rob Parsons

I have never loved Fortune, even when she seemed most to love me. I never considered her treasures mine, neither her money, nor her office nor her influence. Her theft of these things, therefore. has taken away nothing of my own. Mother, my roof is the stars. My house is human goodness. My body is clothed. My stomach is full. And the thirstier part of me, my soul, drinks gladly from the pool of my books.
So much for me. I am just fine. — Walter Wangerin Jr.

I don't love football the way I once loved the game. I don't look at it as fun anymore, and it definitely used to be fun. A lot of the fun has been taken away from it, I guess, because you go through so much on the field and off the field. — Eric Dickerson

What was the point of loving when the people you loved were taken from you? When Death and Time were always looming and poised to strike, why did love exist? — Alexandra Monir

And suddenly it came to him. That Strawberry Fields garden he'd come from, and the Freedom Tower he'd been thinking of: taken together, didn't they contain the two words that said it all about this city, the two words that really mattered? It seemed to him that they did. Two words: the one an invitation, the other an ideal, an adventure, a necessity. "Imagine" said the garden. "Freedom" said the tower. Imagine freedom. That was the spirit, the message of this city he loved. You really didn't need anything more. Dream it and do it. But first you must dream it. — Edward Rutherfurd

Then one day Chip showed up with the back of his pickup truck just loaded with old metal letters he'd found at a flea market--big, oddly shaped letters taken from various old signs. They were mismatched and rusty and dented--and I loved them. We tacked them up on the front of the shop, spelling out the name that would come to mean so much: Magnolia. The letters were uneven and looked a little handmade and ragged, but it seemed to work. I loved this sign because Chip designed it and made it with his own two hands. It came together in such an imperfectly perfect way, and I hoped people would get it.

To this day that sign is one of my proudest accomplishments. I'm no Joanna Gaines, but I certainly see things differently and love design in my own unique way. That first sign really reflected that for me. I would glow when I would hear a customer come in the shop and say, "I saw the sign and just had to stop in. — Joanna Gaines

When I was a kid, I wanted to be as good an actor as Patrick, as cool as Frakes, and as funny as Brent. From time to time, one of them would say something to me that made me feel like I'd taken a step in that direction, and it always meant the world to me. I loved it when Brent would joke around with me, because it made me feel like I was the peer I so desperately wanted to be, instead of the clueless teenager I knew I was. — Wil Wheaton

When I came to Delhi first and said, "This is not India. And then I was taken to Varanasi and there I loved, loved the culture. It was a beautiful journey. The way the people dressed - even the poorest people, and the fabrics! With vegetable dyes, and I was fascinated by the color.But in the end I loved the men - all in white - so many shades of white. And I said, "What am I going to do? A color collection or a white collection?" I finally did a neutral white collection. — Donna Karan

I thought you loved me. Taking it back so soon? Or is this it then? Have you built up enough of a case to walk away yet? Because I haven't said three fucking words to you that you've taken the meaning out of?
That broke me, because I'd let him see who I was, and all he saw was the worst of me. And even more painful, he seemed ready and willing to let me walk away. — R.K. Lilley

I don't know whether the spider perhaps does not hate the fly he has marked and is snaring. Dear little fly! It seems to me that the victim is loved, or at least may be loved. Here I love my enemy. I am delighted, for instance, that she is so beautiful. I am delighted, madam, that you are so haughty and majestic. If you were meeker it would not be so delightful. You have spat on me
and I am triumphant. If you were literally to spit in my face I should really not be angry because you
are my victim; mine and not his. How fascinating was that idea! Yes, the secret consciousness of power is more insupportably delightful than open domination. If I were a millionaire I believe I should take pleasure in going about in the oldest clothes and being taken for a destitute man, almost a beggar, being jostled and despised. The consciousness of the truth would be enough for me. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

They would have been still more amazed if they had seen what Beth did afterward. If you will believe me, she went and knocked at the study door before she gave herself time to think, and when a gruff voice called out, "come in!" she did go in, right up to Mr. Laurence, who looked quite taken aback, and held out her hand, saying, with only a small quaver in her voice, "I came to thank you, sir, for ... " But she didn't finish, for he looked so friendly that she forgot her speech and, only remembering that he had lost the little girl he loved, she put both arms round his neck and kissed him. — Louisa May Alcott

Carefully she took hold of the chain dangling from it, the jade pendant he had given her so long ago. The inscription on the back still gleamed as if new:
When two people are at one in their most inmost hearts, they shatter even the strength of iron or bronze.
"You remember, that you left it with me?" she said. "I've never taken it off."
He closed his eyes. His lashes lay against his cheeks, long and fine. "All these years," he said, and his voice was a low whisper, and it was not the voice of the boy he had been once, but it was still a voice she loved. "All these years, you wore it? I never knew. — Cassandra Clare

Loved ones are sometimes taken from us, either by death or other circumstances outside our control. Yes, we should lament their departure and yes, we should pray for them often. But we shouldn't dwell so deeply upon such vacancies that life itself becomes empty. — John Shors

Berlin. I used to love this old city. But that was before it had caught sight of its own reflection and taken to wearing corsets laced so tight that it could hardly breathe. I loved the easy, carefree philosophies, the cheap jazz, the vulgar cabarets and all of the other cultural excesses that characterized the Weimar years and made Berlin seem like one of the most exciting cities in the world. — Philip Kerr

The simple fact was, he loved her. Loved her with every breath in his body, every cell in his blood, every bone and organ he possessed. He loved her to the depths of his very soul. Had only taken five minutes after she'd walked away to realize it. She — Gena Showalter

He was a greater craftsman even than Isaac, and he knew it, and so, presently, did Isaac.
There was a greatness in Isaac. One evening at supper, between one bite of sausage and another, he was able to acknowledge that it was so. "He must increase, but I must decrease," he said to himself. He did not know where the quotation came from, or that in taking it to himself he had taken a fence at which many balked or fell. He finished the sausage without having the slightest idea that he was not the same man that he had been when he embarked upon it. The next morning he smiled at Job and asked him if he would like to help him with his clock. Job went crimson to the roots of his hair and unable to speak bent to pick up a tool he had dropped under the workbench. When he reappeared he was no more able to speak than he had been before, but his face was shining like the morning sun. From that moment the two increasingly loved each other. — Elizabeth Goudge

That's a terrible price to pay because you loved life so much, with the intensity of a thousand suns, and the women and all of it - and then it's all taken away from you. You end up walking the hallways of always to a place called tedium and apathy, day after day after day. Years go by. — George Jung

We are blessed when our loved ones know what they have long before they lose us. It's the same with people. If they are taken for granted long enough, they can be oppressed to the point that they never experience the joys of life. Life on earth becomes a disappointment for them and Heaven becomes their goal. On the other hand, if they are loved and encouraged and appreciated, they will find all kinds of reasons to keep on living! It is never too late to help someone to see that they are valuable and wanted upon the earth. — Kate McGahan

This is for all the people I'll never meet. This is for the person I might have kissed had I taken a different subway line on Saturday and the person I might have been if that boy hadn't broken my mother's teenage heart. This is for the people I would have loved if last winter hasn't been so cold and for the city I would have called home if I had written haikus on napkins and carried pens in dress pockets and in the knots of my hair. This is for who I was, who I am, who I might be. This is for you. — Chuck Pulaski

Every living thing deserves to be respected, taken care of and loved. Religious differences are but a mere way of one's own choices. We breathe the same air, share the some food; cooking, it can be different. But fish is fish whether grilled, fried, or dropped in curry. — Sulaiman Dawood

Calvin had finally taken a look at the ET tape, and he had reacted just as she had expected he would. He loved it; he loved me. Suddenly he was thinking of me for everything: underwear, jeans, suits, even the Escape fragrance campaign. — Michael Bergin

JAMIE'S SONG 'HEAVEN':

You hold me so tight that I can't breathe,
You make me feel light that I can't sleep.
Float from our bed, fly away,
Soaring like angels through the heavens and seas.

I wish that we hadn't taken so long,
To realise this is where we belong.
This is the life, that you and I
Have been dying for.

If heaven is this,
This place in your arms,
I'm not afraid of dying,
I want to die tonight.
If heaven is this,
Your lips when we kiss,
I'm not afraid of dying,
Let them kill me tonight.

And I know I'll go to heaven,
Because I made you smile.
Yes, I know I'll go to heaven,
Because you loved our life.
But if they banish me to hell,
You will pull me out again.
You belong in heaven,
And I belong with you. — Neha Yazmin

It has taken me four years to figure this out.
If we live long enough, we all will experience this.
Don't ever predetermine how you think that you should feel on an anniversary of a tragic event in your life, such as a death of a loved one, or on a holiday after such an event.
Each year starts out with 365 days, and I will be damned if I am giving up even one of them to misery. — JohnA Passaro

His eyes were rolling in their sockets, and his face had taken on the colour and expression of a devout tomato. I could see he loved like a thousand bricks. — P.G. Wodehouse

I think of what Mamey told me long ago: there are many ways to love and be loved. Too bad it's taken most of a lifetime for me to understand what that means. — Christina Baker Kline

I have taken so many wrong turns and been so careless with precious things and managed to lose, or break, or leave out in the rain so much that I loved. — Garrison Keillor

To be a Christian is to be loved by God, pursued by God, and found by God. To be a Christian is to realize that in your sin, you were separated from God's presence, and you deserved nothing but God's wrath. Yet despite your darkness and in your deadness, his light shone on you and his voice spoke to you, inviting you to follow him. His majesty captivated your soul and his mercy covered your sin, and by his death he brought you life. Do you know for sure that you are his child, not ultimately because of any good you have done - any prayers you have prayed, steps you have taken, or boxes you have checked - but solely because of the grace he has given? — David Platt

Let me begin with a heartfelt confession.
I admit it. I am a biblioholic, one who loves books and whose life would seem incomplete without them. I am an addict, with a compulsive need to stop by nearly any bookstore I pass in order to get my fix. Books are an essential part of my life, the place where I have spent many unforgettable moments. For me, reading is one of the most enjoyable ways to pass a rainy afternoon or a leisurely summer day. I crave the knowledge and insights that truly great books bring into my life and can spend transported hours scouring used book stores for volumes which "I simply must have". I love the smell and feel of well-loved books and the look of a bookcase full of books waiting to be taken down and read. — Terry W. Glaspey

I shared the details of Steve Jobs's story, because when it comes to finding fulfilling work, the details matter. If a young Steve Jobs had taken his own advice and decided to only pursue work he loved, we would probably find him today as one of the Los Altos Zen Center's most popular teachers. But he didn't follow this simple advice. Apple Computer was decidedly not born out of passion, but instead was the result of a lucky break - a "small-time" scheme that unexpectedly took off. — Cal Newport

You lie, madam, for you do not love me and you have never loved me! What a poor fellow I must be to let you mock and flout me as you have done! Why did you give me every reason for hope, at Perros... for honest hope, madam, for I am an honest man and I believed you to be an honest woman, when your only intention was to deceive me! Alas, you have deceived us all! You have taken a shameful advantage of the candid affection of your benefactress herself, who continues to believe in your sincerity while you go about the Opera ball with Red Death!...I despise you!... — Gaston Leroux

He is lying on dirty straw. He has been beaten so many times, his body is one bloodied bruise; he is filthy, he is hideous, he is a sinner and he is utterly unloved. At any moment, at any instant, he will be put on a train in his shackles and taken through Cerberus's mouth to Hades for the rest of his wretched life. And it is at that precise moment that the light shines from the door of his dark cell #7, and in front of him Tatiana stands, tiny, determined, disbelieving, having returned for him. Having abandoned the infant boy who needs her most to go find the broken beast who needs her most. She stands mutely in front of him and doesn't see the blood, doesn't see the filth, sees only the man, and then he knows; he is not cast out. He is loved. — Paullina Simons

I was worn out, broken: He had taken almost everything. But he'd been all I'd had, all this time. And when the police led him away, I pulled out of the hands of all these loved one, sobbing, screaming, everything hurting, to try and make him stay. — Sarah Dessen

When you need to be loved, you take love wherever you can find it. When you are desperate to be loved, feel love, know love, you seek out what you think love should look like. When you find love, or what you think love is, you will lie, kill, and steal to keep it. But learning about real love comes from within. It cannot be given. It cannot be taken away. It grows from your ability to re-create within yourself, the essence of loving experiences you have had in your life. — Iyanla Vanzant

They were talking more distantly than if they were strangers who had just met, for if they had been he would have been interested in her just because of that, and curious, but their common past was a wall of indifference between them. Kitty knew too well that she had done nothing to beget her father's affection, he had never counted in the house and had been taken for granted, the bread-winner who was a little despised because he could provide no more luxuriously for his family; but she had taken for granted that he loved her just because he was her father, and it was a shock to discover that his heart was empty of feeling for her. She had known that they were all bored by him, but it had never occurred to her that he was equally bored by them. He was as ever kind and subdued, but the sad perspicacity which she had learnt in suffering suggested to her that, though he probably never acknowledged it to himself and never would, in his heart he disliked her. — W. Somerset Maugham

It is better to be loved than admired. It is better to be truly known and seen and taken care of by a small tribe than adored by strangers who think they know you in a meaningful way. — Shauna Niequist

Embrace the path your loved one's story has taken, and be part of the culture shift that acknowledges dying as part of living. — Carrie Chavez Hansen

And it killed me because I could never forget him. Couldn't because he'd permanently etched himself to me, left a part of himself forever within me. For so many years I'd loved him, but when he'd gone this time, he'd taken a part of me captive too, a piece that could never be retrieved because it would always belong to him ... — A.L. Jackson

I have come to realize that destiny can hurt a person as much as it can bless them, and I find myself wondering why
out of all the people in all the world I could ever have loved
I had to fall in love with someone who was taken away from me. — Nicholas Sparks

Countless millions of people live in self-protective mode every day. They're afraid to love and to be loved because they're terrified of being taken. They're desperately afraid of getting trampled, since all of us, to one degree or another, have been trampled in the past. — Tullian Tchividjian

She loved nothing in the world except this woman's son, wanted him alive more than anybody, but hadn't the least bit of control over the predator that lived inside her. Totally taken over by her anaconda love, she had no self left, no fears, no wants, no intelligence that was her own [ ... ] Ruth heard the supplication in her words and it seemed to her that she was not looking at a person but at an impulse, a cell, a red corpuscle that neither knows nor understands why it is driven to spend its whole life in one pursuit: swimming up a dark tunnel toward the muscle of a heart or an eye's nerve end that it both nourished and fed from. — Toni Morrison

Autumn is here
and I am in love.
My heart has taken residence in my mind.
I pick the crisp ochre leaves
and put them in my pocket.
I am in love. — Kamand Kojouri

Cameras are simple tools designed to capture images. Images that tell us more about ourselves than we realize. They remind us of the long journey we've taken. The loved ones who traveled alongside of us. Those we lost along the way. And those waiting for us on the road ahead. — Mary Alice

Everything I loved was taken away from me, and I did not die. — James Patterson

Loving someone is easy. It's your car and all you have to do is start the engine, give her a little gas and point the thing wherever you want to go. But being loved is like being taken for a ride in someone else's car. Even if you think they'll be a good driver, you always have the innate fear they might do something wrong: in an instant you'll both be flying through the windshield toward imminent disaster. Being loved can be the most frightening thing of all. Because love means good-bye to control; and what happens if halfway or three-quarters of the way through the trip you decide you want to go back, or in a different direction, and you're only the codriver? — Jonathan Carroll

Listen, Mollie, I need to get home and let my parents know I'm alive. Then I am coming back for you. If my home is still standing, I'll provide a place for you and Frank as long as you need." "Why would you do that?" She looked a little taken aback, which surprised him. Because he loved her. Because they had just experienced the worst two days imaginable, and the bond that had been forged between them was not something to be tossed away. If Louis Hartman didn't like it, he would quit. The fire had just taught Zack what was most important in this world, and she was looking straight at him. — Elizabeth Camden

I brought home a baby without telling [husband John McCain], and he not only took it in stride but loved it, immediately embracing Bridget, who shares John's very dry sense of humor, so she and her dad do pretty well together. If I hadn't taken Bridget out, I think she would have become a prostitute or worse, died. — Cindy McCain

Nothing could be taken for granted. Women who loved you tried to cut your throat, while women who didn't even know your name scrubbed your back. Witches could sound like Katharine Hepburn and your best friend could try to strangle you. Smack in the middle of an orchid there might be a blob of jello and inside a Mickey Mouse doll, a fixed and radiant star. — Toni Morrison

Look here!' she said, striking the scar again, with a relentless hand. 'When he grew into the better understanding of what he had done, he saw it, and repented of it! I could sing to him, and talk to him, and show the ardour that I felt in all he did, and attain with labour to such knowledge as most interested him; and I attracted him. When he was freshest and truest, he loved me. Yes, he did! Many a time, when you were put off with a slight word, he has taken Me to his heart! — Charles Dickens

When someone says "I Love You," it is imperative that you know if you are loved for "WHAT you are" or "WHO you are."
When the academic qualifications, professionals, positions, possessions, good look, fat bank accounts and all that has been acquired over the years are taken away, all that is left is "Who you are" - Your Personality (character, values, perceptions.)
"We are never truly loved, until we are loved for WHO and not WHAT we are — Olaotan Fawehinmi

She had sacrificed her childhood to save her brothers; she loved her family above all else, and her spirits yearned to return home once more, to the wild forest and the land of mystic tales and ancient spirits whence he had taken her. That was the place of her heart, and if he loved her, he must let her go. — Juliet Marillier

I loved 'Matilda.' The kids are so brilliant and uninhibited. They were inspiring. Seeing them onstage, just going wild, reminded me of when I was that age. I was excited for them and completely taken by their innocence and hard work. — Matthew James Thomas

He loved Ty Grady with all there was to give of his heart, and in the end, all it had taken was one wink for Zane to finally come to terms with it. As — Madeleine Urban

It was all very well to pretend you were not afraid of death, Bea thought, but people only said that because they had not looked death in the eye. They had not understood that it meant everything you have always taken for granted and loved without even knowing it-the world around you, the memories you carry with you, your hopes for the future- all of this being extinguished like a candle flame that is blown out. And afterwards, there would be nothing. Not even emptiness. Not even loneliness. Not even pain. — Brian Keaney

[The wilderness] had caressed him, and - lo! - he had withered; it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to its own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation. — Joseph Conrad

And now it [grass] seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves,
Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
It may be you from old people, or from offspring taken soon out of their
mother's laps,
And here you are the mothers' laps.
- Song of Myself: 6 — Walt Whitman

Wait," I said as Noah slipped a book from a shelf and headed toward the door. "Where are you going?"
"To read?"
But I don't want you to.
"But I need to go home," I said, my eyes meeting his. "My parents are going to kill me."
"Taken care of. You're at Sophie's house."
I loved Sophie.
"So I'm ... staying here?"
"Daniel's covering for you."
I loved Daniel.
"Where's Katie?" I asked, trying to sound casual.
"Eliza's house."
I loved Eliza.
"And your parents?" I asked.
"Some charity thing."
I loved charity.
"So why are you going to read when I'm right here? — Michelle Hodkin

No love is lost even though the lover turns away from us or life. Within us are the people we have loved, not as they were but as we wanted them to be. As our fresh grief softens to sorrow, we suddenly discover the lover's eyes in our mirror the lover's words on our lips, even the beloved's jokes have become ours. What reality has taken, we have taken for our own. Nothing is ever lost. Layers of our being contain all that has lived for us or that we imagined. We exude the strength of our losses and our gains glow even in the dark. — Ruth H. Jacobs

Gamache loved to see inside the homes of people involved in a case. To look at the choices they made for their most intimate space. The colors, the decorations. The aromas. Were there books? What sort?

How did it feel?

He'd been in shacks in the middle of nowhere, carpets worn, upholstery torn, wallpaper peeling off. But stepping in he'd also noticed the smell of fresh coffee and bread. Walls were taken up with immense smiling graduation photos and on rusty pocked TV trays stood modest chipped vases with cheery daffodils or pussy willows or some tiny wild flower picked by worn hands for eyes that would adore it.

And he'd been in mansions that felt like mausoleums. — Louise Penny

It seems we must be taken twice, by the love that we inflict and then by the infliction of being loved, before we have the humility to look and take whatever agreeable plant that we have never seen before, because of it being all around our feet, and take it and watch it grow, choosing the lesser truth because it's all that we'll ever know. — John McGahern

Ten years have passed since a perfect blue sky morning turned into the blackest of nights. Since then we've lived in sunshine and in shadow, and although we can never unsee what happened here, we can also see that children who lost their parents have grown into young adults, grandchildren have been born and good works and public service have taken root to honor those we loved and lost. — Michael Bloomberg

Peeking in the rearview mirror as she pulled away, she saw that Dawson was still standing where she'd left him, as if hoping she'd change her mind and turn the car around. She felt the stirrings of something dangerous, something she'd been trying to deny. He still loved her, she was certain of that now, and the realization was intoxicating. She knew it was wrong, and she tried to force the feeling away, but Dawson and their past had taken root once more, and she could no longer deny the simple truth that for the first time in years, she'd felt like she'd finally come home. — Nicholas Sparks