Only If You Loved Me Quotes & Sayings

I loved her more than she loved me, that was the problem. A basic imbalance. Relationships like that never last, however hard you try. And now she's pregnant and in love with a man who'll never love her the way she loves him. It's a series of vicious circles, and the only way to stop it is to find someone who loves you the same. No power struggle. No insecurities. Just friendship. Because you can never be friends with someone if you love them too much. — Lisa Jewell

I have talked with people that have no assurance of sins forgiven. They want to feel saved before they're willing to commit themselves to Christ. But I believe that the only ones whom God actually witnesses by His Spirit are born of Him, are the people whether they say it or not, that come to Jesus Christ and say something like this: 'Lord Jesus, I'm gonna obey You and love You and serve You and do what You want me to do as long as I live even if I go to hell at the end of the road simply because You are worthy to be loved, obeyed and served. And I'm not trying to make a deal with You.' — Paris Reidhead

He does not love you." "Yes he does. I know he does. He just doesn't want to lose me." "The only person Aaron loves is Aaron. If he cared about you, he'd never do anything to hurt you. Love is," his gaze flicked over to the picture of his parents, "it's being kind and supportive. Not cruel. Not controlling. I'd never treat someone I loved like that. — Amy Maltman

Being loved means; are disagreements welcome in my relationships? If you cant disagree with someone then you live in a tyranny and if you live in a tyranny then you are only loved to the degree that you erase yourself and conform to the irrational expectations of bullies. That isn't love obviously.
Now if somebody in you life demands that you not disagree with them and gets angry, "offended", or outraged should you disagree with them then, that person is not a good person. It's pretty narcissistic. It's somebody who does not have the maturity, wisdom, and ego strength to handle, and in fact welcome disagreements.
When people disagree with me as a whole I think it's a great opportunity for learning. People don't want to expose topics that might cause disagreement because, if the disagreement is punished then the illusion of being loved by good people is shattered. — Stefan Molyneux

Jemma, I know that we have known each other for only a few short weeks, but I feel as if I have known you all my life. This courtship may have been arranged at the beginning, but my love for you is truer than ever. So, I ask you, my love, as a man would rightly ask the woman he wishes to be his wife, if you will marry me. Don't say yes because of the original arrangement, say yes because you want to. I will love you forever Jemma Girard, and I would never force you to stay in an arrangement you did not want. If you wish it, we can eliminate the plans of marriage. I stood there in a breathless shock, staring at this wonderful and handsome young man who loved me enough to let me go. — Katlyn Charlesworth

Don't be embarrassed about being loved. I'm not asking you for anything; just let me love you and play the piano again tonight, just once more, if I still have the strength to do it. In exchange I ask only one thing: If you hear anyone say that I'm dying, go straight to my ward. Let me have my wish. — Paulo Coelho

You never understood it, did you?" I ask him softly and surprisingly without accusation. "Despite any evidence to the contrary I do love you just as much as I loved him. Everything I would have sacrificed to save him I'll willingly sacrifice for you."
"You don't need to do this to prove you love me," he tells me urgently.
Inexplicably under the circumstances his answer irritates me more than Donal's snort of mocking laughter. "Don't you do that Tulloch Sullivan, don't you try and make this about me trying to prove something. I shouldn't have to prove it. You can feel what I feel even if you don't believe it. I'm trying to save your life, nothing more than that, because you are the only thing that matters to me. — Angela Louise McGurk

Some of you young folks been saying to me, 'Hey Pops, what you mean what a wonderful world? How about all them wars all over the place? You call them wonderful? And how about hunger and pollution? They ain't so wonderful either.' But how about listening to old Pops for a minute. It seems to me it ain't the world that's so bad, but what we're doing to it, and all I'm saying is see what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance. Love, baby, love. That's the secret. Yeah. If lots more of us loved each other, we'd solve lots more problems. And man, this world would be a gasser. — Louis Armstrong

My parents kept a small cabin the mountains. It was a simple thing, just four walls, and very dark inside. A heavy felt curtain blotted out whatever light made it through the canopy of huge pines and down into the cabin's only window. There was a queen-size bed in there, an armchair, and a wood-burning stove. It wasn't an old cabin. I think my parents built it in the seventies from a kit. In a few spots the wood beams were branded with the word HOME-RITE. But the spirit of the place me think of simpler times, olden days, yore, or whenever it was that people rarely spoke except to say there was a store coming or the berries were poisonous or whatnot, the bare essentials. It was deadly quiet up there. You could hear your own heart beating if you listened. I loved it, or at least I thought I ought to love it - I've never been very clear on that distinction. — Ottessa Moshfegh

Dear Torina, I can't face the idea of sacrificing you to this danger. You must stay alive." He caressed her cheek. "Hear me," he went on. "Even if you feel only friendship, Torina, I've loved you since the day you helped me to my feet. I tried so hard to stop. Then I thought you were dead, and my life hurt every day. — Victoria Hanley

And when he died, I was glad. I know it sounds terrible to say that, but I was happy he was relieved of that degrading sickness. I knew he never suffered, and I knew he had no idea what was happening to him, and I was grateful for that. It was a blessing - it was the only thing that kept me going, all of those months and years. But it was a horrible thing to watch happening to someone I loved so much. You know, when I went to the hospital after Phil died, they asked me if I wanted to see his body. I said no. My friend, who is a devout Catholic, had gone with me, and she couldn't understand my refusal. But I didn't want to remember that face dead. You have to understand - it wasn't for me that I felt that way. It was for him. — Sherwin B. Nuland

But who I was, who you loved, no longer exists. I have passed on. In your world, only my memory can exist. Your loyalty to me because of that memory is a part of life, but it can become disloyalty to yourself if you hold it so closely that it crowds out the rest of life. — Terry Goodkind

Sister, why do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Cage the animals at night?"
"Well ... " She looked up and out through the barred window before answering me."We don't want to, Jennings, but we have to. You see, the animals that are given to us we have to take care of. If we didn't cage them up in one place, we might lose them, they might get hurt or damaged. It's not the best thing, but it's the only way we have to take care of them."
"But if somebody loved one them," I asked, "wouldn't it be a good idea to let them have one? To keep, I mean?"
"Yes, it would be. But not everyone would love them and take care of them as you would. I wish I could give them all away tomorrow." She looked at me. There were tears in her eyes. "But I can't. My heart would break if I saw just one of those animals lying by the wayside uncared for, unloved. No, Jennings. It's better if we keep them together. — Jennings Michael Burch

His name is Richard Bingham and he's an advertising executive at Bingham, Charles & Alexander. And yes, he is the Bingham in the title. He says, "I loved watching you eat your lunch. You really savored the flavors."
I am immediately mortified by his comment as I can only imagine what I must have looked like. I get an image in my head of a phone sex commercial for 1-800 eat-this. I grimace and beg, "Please tell me you were not watching me eat."
But he just smiles, "I couldn't take my eyes off of you. That's why I brought the desserts over. I can die a happy man if you'll just take one bite of each of them for me. — Whitney Dineen

You selfish bitch!"
She had known for a long time that putting her needs above those of Adam's wife and children was indeed selfish. She had no real answer to the accusation thrown at her.
"I'm sorry" she said, with her head in her hands.
"you're sorry?" came her adversary's disbelieving reply.
"I am. I'm sorry he married you when he was in love with me. I'm sorry I couldn't have loved someone else. I'm sorry your marriage is a joke and I'm sorry that I'm alone. I'm sorry for a lot of things - for you, for your kids, for me and for him. I spend most of my time being sorry."
For a moment there was silence at the end of the line.
"all you had to do was stay away"
"if only I could have." tears escaped and raced down her cheeks.
"I hate you! — Anna McPartlin

But how shall I tell you all these things," he said, the line of his mouth twisting. "And then say to you
it is only you I have ever loved? How should you believe me?"
The question hung in the air between us, shimmering like the reflection from the water below.
"If you say it," I said, "I'll believe you." ...
"Only you," he said, so softly I could barely hear him. "To worship ye with my body, give ye all the service of my hands. To give ye my name, and all my heart and soul with it. Only you. Because ye will not let me lie - and yet ye love me."
I did touch him then.
"Jamie," I said softly, and laid my hand on his arm. "You aren't alone anymore. — Diana Gabaldon

It is important to recognize when you have been detached from life for too long. The fact is you are still alive, and I can only imagine that your loved one would want you to go on living. I highly doubt they would have said to you, When or if I die before you, I want you to spend the rest of your life sitting on a couch staring at the wall. Please fulfill this important task for me. — Elizabeth Berrien

To get the most out of the relationship you are in, it won't be helpful to listen to the ego's stories about it. They will only bring separation and conflict. Essence would tell a different story about your loved one. It would probably be something like: "This person is in my life for me to love to the best of my ability. Let's see what happens if I do that." As Essence, we are here to serve others and serve life. The ego, on the other hand, is all about serving itself. — Gina Lake

It took everything I had to try to convince myself that I wasn't falling for you, Tate. Every single time I was around you, the things I would feel terrified me. I had gone six years thinking I had control of my life and my heart and that nothing could ever hurt me again. But when we were together, there were moments I didn't care if I ever hurt again, because being with you almost felt worth the potential pain. Every time I began to feel that way, I would just push you farther away out of guilt and fear. I felt like I didn't deserve you. I didn't deserve happiness at all, because I'd taken it away from the only two people I had ever loved. — Colleen Hoover

Looking at those photographs, I remembered how my parents had never said "I love you" to each other. How they had said only "I miss you." At the time, I hadn't been able to figure out what this meant. But now it seemed clear: this was how they defined their love - by how deeply they missed each other when they were together. They felt the loss before it happened, and their love was defined by that loss. They hungered even as they ate, thirsted even as they drank. My mother once told me to live my life as if I were already dead. "Live each day as if you know it's gonna be gone tomorrow," she had said. That was how my parents loved each other, with a desperate, melancholy love, a fierce nostalgia for the present. — Danzy Senna

You taught me what it means to fight for what you love.
You showed me great endurance in a manner that was unusual to me.
You fought for my heart until all the fight in you was gone without neglecting your brain.
You displayed to me what unconditional love should look like, if I were to stare at it in a mirror.
You loved me even on the days I found it difficult to even love myself.
You scooped down to help me up at my lowest.
You chained your heart to mine and stayed by my side even when all the signs gave you red lights about continuing our relationship.
You remained loyal, even when I became disloyal, and fulfilled the belief that many men are dogs.
You hung on longer than I expected,
Loved me more than I could ever imagine.
Some may have called you foolish for staying, but you showed me an aspect of love I've only read about in 1 Corinthians 13. — Pierre Alex Jeanty

I kept glancing at him and away from him, as if his green eyes were hurting me. In modern parlance he was a laser beam. Deadly and delicate he seemed. His victims had always loved him.
And I had always loved him, hadn't I, no matter what happened, and how strong could love grow if you had eternity to nourish it, and it took only these few moments in time to renew its momentum, its heat?
-Lestat — Anne Rice

Anna took love very seriously. She loved love. No, worshipped, that's the word. She worshipped love. That was the only thing which had any place in her life. That and hatred. Do you know what neutron stars are?'
'They're planets with such compactness and high surface gravity that if I dropped this cigarette on one of them it would strike with the same force as an atom bomb. It was the same with Anna. Her gravitation to love-and hatred-was so strong that nothing could exist in the space between them. Every tiny detail caused an atomic explosion. Do you understand? It took me time to understand. She was like Jupiter-hidden behind an eternal cloud of sulphur. And humour. And sexuality. — Jo Nesbo

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

Be very sure, my son, God is the only adviser to be trusted, and you must do what he tells you, even if it lead you to a stake, to be burned by the slow fire of poverty. - O my Father!" cried the old man, breaking out suddenly in prayer, "my soul is a flickering flame of which thou art the eternal, inextinguishable fire. I am blessed because thou art. Because thou art life, I live. Nothing can hurt me, because nothing can hurt thee. To thy care I leave my son, for thou lovest him as thou hast loved me. Deal with him as thou hast dealt with me. I ask for nothing, care for nothing but thy will. Strength is gone from me, but my life is hid in thee. I am a feeble old man, but I am dying into the eternal day of thy strength. — George MacDonald

My agent in London told me, after Never Let Me Go, because I loved doing that so much, "If you're on a lucky streak and you're doing well, you should only take a part, if you can't bear the idea of anyone else doing it." That's been the case since then, with Drive and Shame and the play (The Seagull), and the stuff that's going on, like Gatsby. I would have been devastated, if I hadn't gotten those jobs. — Carey Mulligan

No, don't draw away from me. Whatever else I am, I am your son - your most wretched son. If you do not hate me, try to love me a little, Father; it is lonely never to have been loved, only devoured. — Rosemary Sutcliff

I am Merc and there are three things you should know about me. Number one. You might be bigger, but I will last longer. Number two. If you fuck me, I fuck everything you ever loved. And number three. I never lose. My victory is only delayed. — J.A. Huss

Mason, I'm ruined. I can never give you what you deserve. I'm incapable of loving someone like - like you want. I will never be able to do it right. I will never deserve to be loved."

My breathing is erratic. I shove myself to my knees and grasp her arms, pulling her toward me once again. "Sometimes never is a distorted perception. I love you, Hope. And I'm not the only one. I know you care about me. I see it in your eyes. I feel it. Everybody needs love. Everybody. And some people need it more than others. You're a liar if you say you don't. I'll do that for you. I'll love you. All you have to do is let me."

The wind whispers against my back as if giving me a nudge toward her and I take it as a sign. I propel myself into her, pushing my bare skin to hers. I need to feel her. I need her to feel me.

This is real. — Cheryl McIntyre

And you, Lord Bridgerton," she replied in a tone that could have frozen champagne, "are almost as handsome as your brother."
Colin snorted again, only this time it sounded as if he were being strangled.
"Are you all right?" Miss Sheffield asked.
"He's fine," Anthony barked.
She ignored him, keeping her attention on Colin. "Are you certain?"
Colin nodded furiously. 'Tickle in my throat."
"Or perhaps a guilty conscience?" Anthony suggested.
Colin turned deliberately from his brother to Kate. "I think I might need another glass of lemonade," he gasped.
"Or maybe," said Anthony, "something stronger. Hemlock, perhaps? — Julia Quinn

And I have always loved you, and if it sometimes seems to me that it is only now that I really love you since we have met again, it is not true, however great my love may be, for I have always loved you, I have always loved you. And if it should happen now that you would become mine- you cannot imagine what that would mean to me, if you, who were taken from me for so many years, were to come back. — Jens Peter Jacobsen

TODAY I THINK MY RELATIONSHIP WITH HELL IS OVER. It was hell, the ancient hell. Hell: I believed that if I loved V enough, we would love each other.
All I know is that I've been returned to earth violently; I've a duty to myself to survive and to see what is. I have to deal with the truth, with nothing else.
Did V's charity to me almost cause my death?
I, starving, fed on the dream that V loved me and I lived a lie. So forgive me, You who knows that only truth matters.
Yes - this dawn is at best difficult.
The blood he let out of my skin, now dried and stiff, hurts me and there's nothing else in my life but memories of him. Mental war is constant.
Nonetheless, this is the eve before the morning.
May I accept the influxes of vigor and whatever real tenderness floats by in these barren waters. And when dawn comes, armed with my patience which burns, I shall see the cities of humans which are splendid.
The imagination is nothing unless it is made actual. — Kathy Acker

It's very simple: I want his love. I need Christian Grey to love me. This is why I am so reticent about our relationship
because on some basic, fundamental level, I recognize within me a deep-seated compulsion to be loved and cherished. And because of his fifty shades, I am holding myself back. The BDSM is a distraction from the real issue. The sex is amazing, he's wealthy, he's beautiful, but this is all meaningless without his love, and the real heart-fail is that I don't know if he's capable of love. He doesn't even love himself. I recall his self-loathing, her love being the only form he found acceptable. Punished
whipped, beaten, whatever their relationship entailed
he feels undeserving of love. Why does he feel like that? How can he feel like that? His words haunt me: It's very hard to grow up in a perfect family when you're not perfect. I close my eyes, imagining his pain, and I can't begin to comprehend it. — E.L. James

Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle. — Steve Jobs

She knows Daddy better than I do. I think it's because she's felt since we were children that our Daddy maybe loved me more than he loves her. This isn't true, and she knows that now
people love different people in different ways
but it must have seemed that way to her when we were little. I look as though I just can't make it, she looks like can't nothing stop her. If you look helpless, people react to you in one way and if you look strong, or just come on strong, people react to you in another way, and, since you don't see what they see, this can be very painful. I think that's why Sis was always in front of that damn mirror all the time, when we were kids. She was saying, 'I don't care. I got me.' Of course, this only made her come on stronger than ever, which was the last effect she desired: but that's the way we are and that's how we can sometimes get so fucked up. Anyway, she's past all that. She knows who she is, or, at least, she knows who she damn well isn't. — James Baldwin

You gotta promise to never leave me. I-I ... you just gotta."
Her response is, "You have to promise to try to love me back. What you're doing to me ... that's not how you treat a person you love, Twitch."
I've loved you since you were six.
Kissing her once more, I tell her without hesitation, "If you promise to never leave me, I will love you. And be good to you. I'll treat you like a queen."
My queen. I heard somewhere that a king only bows
down to his queen. And I'm bowing down to Lexi. My chest aches. I don't know if I like this love thing. — Belle Aurora

He pulled back, but only enough to lock his eyes onto mine as he held my face in his hands. "It will always be you, Cassandra," he whispered against my lips. Then he kissed me again, much softer this time, as if gently transferring every ounce of love he had for me onto my lips. I didn't need any words, this was all I ever needed to know that he loved me.
Everything around me faded. All my worries, all my fears disappeared when he touched me. We weren't stuck in this Hell, we weren't even in its realm. We were in our own world, no one around to save, or to slay. God, if only we could stay here. I didn't want to face reality, not when I had him here with me now, not after thinking I'd lost him. — L.J. Kentowski

(Page 288)
If my love were an ocean,
there would be no more land.
If my love were a desert,
you would see only sand.
If my love were a star-
late at night, only light.
And if my love could grow wings,
I'd be soaring in flight.
-I love poetry so getting to read something as tiny as this was very refreshing. I think I can relate to Hannah because what she is essentially saying is that she loves a lot to the point that if her love were an object in this world.. the entire world would be consumed by it just to show the amount of love she has. It got me confused because I found it kind of selfish of Hannah writing that poem because if she loved everone as deeply as her poems depict.. why would she leave them? — Jay Asher

If it wasn't for you, I don't know where I'd be. Thank you for genuinely loving me. Thank you for showing me That I was loved. Thank you for making me feel wanted. Thank you for guiding me and teaching me. Thank you for our beautiful memories. You made the difference In my life. You were my only bright spot. My comfort zone. My place of happiness and freedom. Just thinking about our love Brightens up my day. Flashbacks of us makes My heart happy. You were my favorite person In this entire world. You gave me what so many people Yearn for in life, GENUINE LOVE. — Stephanie Lahart

Whether it is the wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, family or friends, so often those closest to us are the ones who get the worst of us. It is as if we feel that they are the only ones we can be grumpy with, and we save our best for our guests or for work. But this is a recipe for struggle. The smart man and woman save the best for those they love. If we show our loved ones the most gratitude every day, then life will smile on us in return. Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude: three words to help you thrive. Trust me. — Bear Grylls

Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish, and men do,
I shall have only good to say of you. — Edna St. Vincent Millay

I remember once, when I lived in the Capital for a month and bought the paper fresh each day, I went wild with love, anger, irritation, frustration; all of the passions boiled in me. I was young. I exploded at everything I saw. But then I saw what I was doing: I was believing what I read. Have you noticed? You believe a paper printed on the very day you buy it? This has happened but only an hour ago, you think! It must be true.' He shook his head. 'So I learned to stand back away and let the paper age and mellow. Back here, in Colonia, I saw the headlines diminish to nothing. The week-old paper - why, you can spit on it if you wish. It is like a woman you once loved, but you now see, a few days later, she is not quite what you thought. She has rather a plain face. She is no deeper than a cup of water. — Ray Bradbury

If you dont speak, they will know you know more than you're telling them. And if they know that, they'll find a way to get what you know out of you. Believe me, they'll get everything out, Willie. Don't have any qualms about it
make your story good and make it believable. Silence won't work! This was an expert giving me the best advice she could. From that point on, I worked hard not to remember the people I loved, to try instead to create another life, a false life ... I tried to become a person concerned only with very simple things
and scared. I tried to become the woman I needed to be in order to live. — Diet Eman

Tall, narrow, and grand, the first house was a Victorian. Once loved by a family, it ended up a college rental. Dylan took it from rundown and abused to grand again.
"Could you see yourself living here?" he asked, wrapping his arms around me from behind.
"No," I said softly.
"Good. Me either, but I'd have moved in tomorrow if you said yes."
Squirming around to face him, I sighed. "You're so whipped."
"I know, but only when it comes to you."
"It's only fair since you own my heart and could destroy me if you wanted."
"Could, but never will," he said, taking my hand. "Let's go look at the midcentury house."
"What if I don't like that one either?"
Dylan opened the car door and shrugged. "Plenty of houses in Ellsberg that need love. We'll find one and make it ours. — Bijou Hunter

If I could be anything in this world I would be rare. So rare that the people I loved never forgot me or ever found anything to compare me to. I was never a type, but the only type
the person you couldn't throw away because you would never be able to describe the mystery of something that didn't fit this world. — Shannon L. Alder

Arms around me in the dark. Lips against mine in the sunlight. Do you know why I love you?
He knew me. And loved me. And he had never asked me for anything. Even Shade wanted me to
die for him. Maybe I shouldn't forgive a monster just because he loved me that way - but
But loving me that way made him a monster. My doom was the price of saving Arcadia, and only
a monster would care more about me than saving thousands upon thousands of innocents. Shade was
the last prince; of course if he could save only one, he would choose Arcadia. I would do the same. — Rosamund Hodge

I have an unfortunate character; whether it is my upbringing that made me like that or God who created me so, I do not know. I know only that if I cause unhappiness to others, I myself am no less happy. I realize this is poor consolation for them - but the fact remains that it is so. In my early youth, after leaving the guardianship of my parents, I plunged into all the pleasures money could buy, and naturally these pleasures grew distasteful to me. Then I went into high society, but soon enough grew tired of it; I fell in love with beautiful society women and was loved by them, but their love only aggravated my imagination and vanity while my heart remained desolate ... I began to read and to study, but wearied of learning, too; I saw that neither fame nor happiness depended on it in the slightest, for the happiest people were the ignorant, and fame was a matter of luck, to achieve which you only had to be shrewd ... — Mikhail Lermontov

The only part of the evening I really enjoyed was when Lord Pomtinius told me a limerick about an adulterous abbot."
"Don't you dare repeat it!" her sister ordered. Georgiana had never shown the faintest wish to rebel against the rules of propriety. She loved and lived by them.
"There once was an adulterous abbot," Olivia teased, "as randy-"
Georgiana slapped her hands over her ears. "I can't believe he told you such a thing! Father would be furious if he knew."
"Lord Pomtinius was in his cups," Olivia said. "Besides, he's ninety-six and he doesn't care about decorum any longer. Just a laugh, now and then."
"It doesn't even make sense. An adulterous abbot? How can an abbot be adulterous? They don't even marry."
"Let me know if you want to hear the whole verse," Olivia said. "It ends with talk of nuns, so I believe the word was being used loosely. — Eloisa James

Last night, there was a moment before you got into bed. You stood, quite naked, bending forward a little - talking. It was only for an instant. I saw you - I loved you so - loved your body with such tenderness - Ah my dear - And I am not thinking now of 'passion.' No, of that other thing that makes me feel that every inch of you is so precious to me. Your soft shoulders - your creamy warm skin, your ears, cold like shells are cold - your long legs and your feet that I love to clasp with my feet - the feeling of your belly - & your thin young back - Just below that bone that sticks out at the back of your neck you have a little mole. It is partly because we are young that I feel this tenderness - I love your youth - I could not bear that it should be touched even by a cold wind if I were the Lord. — Katherine Mansfield

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

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

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

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

I gave myself to you sooner than I ever did to any man, I swear to you; and do you know why? Because when you saw me spitting blood you took my hand; because you wept; because you are the only human being who has ever pitied me. I am going to say a mad thing to you: I once had a little dog who looked at me with a sad look when I coughed; that is the only creature I ever loved. When he died I cried more than when my mother died. It is true that for twelve years of her life she used to beat me. Well, I loved you all at once, as much as my dog. If men knew what they can have for a tear, they would be better loved and we should be less ruinous to them. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

And if I had loved him less I should have thought his accent and look of exultation savage; but, sitting by him, roused from the nightmare of parting- called to the paradise of union- I thought only of the bliss given to me to drink in so abundant a flow.
Again and again he said, "Are you happy, Jane?" And again and again I answered, "Yes. — Charlotte Bronte

I only hope that one day I can frighten my daughter this much. Right now, she's not scared of my husband or me at all. I think it's a problem. I was a freshman home from college the first time my dad said, "You're going out at ten p.m.? I don't think so," and I just laughed and said, "It's fine." I feel like my daughter will be doing that to me by age six.
How can I give her what Don Fey gave me? The gift of anxiety. The fear of getting in trouble. The knowledge that while you are loved, you are not above the law. The Worldwide Parental Anxiety System is failing if this many of us have made sex tapes. — Tina Fey

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

I will be forever grateful for your presence in my life. I am a much better human being because of you. The experience of loving you, living with you, was the greatest journey of my life thus far. You showed me an alternative to the man I was becoming.
I know I still have much to learn, much to accomplish, and I know my future is bright. I owe you the confidence I now have in myself. This is the confidence that could only come from the knowledge that a woman of your caliber loved me for who I am; for what you saw in me.
You are a great woman and I mean that in the strongest sense of the phrase. You feel deeply, think deeply, and live deeply. I admire so much about you. Regardless of whether our paths cross again, know that I am actively wishing you success and happiness. I pray that you will once again be part of my life. But if left with just the experience we've shared, I know my life was better because of it. — Emma Forrest

Austin stood. "All right, I will." He walked to the door and stopped, his hand on the latch. He gazed back over his shoulder. "That woman you love ... Do I know her?"
Houston forced himself to meet his brother's gaze. The boy only knew one woman, if he didn't count the whores in Dusty Flats. "Yeah, you do."
"She never left your side, not for one minute."
"She should have."
"Well, I'm not learned in these matters, but I'd like to think if a woman ever loved me as much as that one loves you ... I'd crawl through hell to be by her side. — Lorraine Heath

I was reading a poem by my idol, Wallace Stevens, in which he said, 'The self is a cloister of remembered sounds.' My first response was, Yesss! How did he know that? It's like he's reading my mind. But my second response was, I need some new sounds to remember. I've been stuck in my little isolation chamber for so long I'm spinning through the same sounds I've been hearing in my head all my life. If I go on this way, I'll get old too fast, without remembering any more sounds than I already know now. The only one who remembers any of my sounds is me. How do you turn down the volume on your personal-drama earphones and learn how to listen to other people? How do you jump off one moving train, marked Yourself, and jump onto a train moving in the opposite direction, marked Everybody Else? I loved a Modern Lovers song called, 'Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste,' and I didn't want to waste mine. — Rob Sheffield

Imagine a very long time passing - and I find my way out, following someone who already knows how to leave Hell. And God says to me on Earth for the first time, "Xas!" in a tone of discovery, as if I'm a misplaced pair of spectacles or a stray dog. And he puts it to me that he wants me in Heaven. But Lucifer has doubled back - it was him I followed - to find me, where I am, in a forest, smitten, because the Lord has noticed me, and I'm overcome, as hopeless as your dog Josie whom you got rid of because she loved me.' Xas glared at Sobran. Then he drew a breath - all had been said on only three. He went on: 'Lucifer says to God the He can't have me. And at this I sit up and tell Lucifer that I didn't even think he knew my name, then say to God no thank you - very insolent this - and that Hell is endurable so long as the books keep appearing. — Elizabeth Knox

I have always loved simplicity. With you, everything's black and white, Richie had said, like an accusation; but the truth is that almost every murder case is, if not simple, capable of simplicity, and that this is not only necessary but breathtaking, that if there are miracles then this is one. In these rooms, the world's vast hissing tangle of shadows burns away, all its treacherous grays are honed to the stark purity of a bare blade, two-edged: cause and effect, good and evil. To me, these rooms are beautiful. I go into them the way a boxer goes into the ring: intent, invincible, home. — Tana French

Dear friends, I want you to hear this: what is said of Jesus is said of you. I know this can be hard to affirm. You are the beloved daughter or son of God. Can you believe it? Can you hear it not only in your head through your physical ears but in your gut, hear it so that your whole life can be turned around? Go to the scriptures and read: "I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have written your name in the palm of my hand from all eternity. I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you in your mother's womb. I love you. I embrace you. You are mine and I am yours and you belong to me." You have to hear this, because if you can hear this divine voice speak to you from all eternity, then your life will become more and more the life of the beloved, because that is who you are. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Here's a secret to love," she said. "Always make sure that the man loves you just a breath more than you love him."
"Oh Mimi, I love your Papa more than any woman ever loved any man. And still, he loves me a breath more. It's the only healthy way. If a woman loves too much- if her love is heavier- she won't see anything but him. She'll be blind to the world. Women are made like that. We have to teach ourselves not to become obsessed. True love lies in peace, not torture. — Suzanne Palmieri

On the fifth [day] Arnom came to me, himself weeping, and I knew his tidings without words. And this is a strange folly, that what seemed to me worst of all was that Bardia had died without ever hearing what it would have shamed him to hear. It seemed to me that all would be bearable if, once only, I could have gone to him and whispered in his ear, 'Bardia, I loved you. — C.S. Lewis

Oh, God, Francesca,Now there's a good one.Why?Why? Why?" He gave each one a different tenor, as if he were testing out the word, asking it to
different people.
"Why?" he asked again, this time with increased volume
as he turned around to face her.
"Why? It's
because I love you, damn me to hell. Because I've always loved you. Because I loved you when you
were with John, and I loved you when I was in India, and God only knows I don't deserve you, but I
love you, anyway."
Francesca sagged against the door.
"How's that for a witty little joke?" he mocked. "I loveyou. I loveyou, my cousin's wife. I loveyou, the
one woman I can never have. I loveyou, Francesca Bridger-ton Stirling. — Julia Quinn

Cookbooks hit you where you live. You want comfort; you want security; you want food; you want to not be hungry and not only do you want those basic things fixed, you want it done in a really nice, gentle way that makes you feel loved. That's a big desire, and cookbooks say to the person reading them, 'If you will read me, you will be able to do this for yourself and for others. You will make everybody feel better.' — Laurie Colwin

Is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all...
But is it? Is it really better to know a thing you love only to lose it?
If I'd known then what I know now...
But that's the thing, isn't it? When you're living a thing...you don't know. You take it for granted, like a dog being petted, assuming it will somehow go on forever.
If I'd known what I know now...
I'd have touched everything in sight, everything I could get my hands on. I'd have grabbed the nearest girl I could find and not even caring how crazy she thought me, touched my hands to her face just to know what that feels like.
Is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all?
I, never having loved before, have no real answer to that question. — Lauren Baratz-Logsted

If the whole world seems like it's against you, it helps to know that you've still got home. A safe place. It just takes one person - a teacher, a friend, a parent. If I didn't have you and Dad, if you hadn't made it so clear you loved me as much as you did, or if you'd said, 'yeah, why don't you do it, and put yourself out of our misery, just shut up,' I would have killed myself. I really would have. I spent most of those days wishing I were dead anyway, and what always stopped me was the fact that doing so would destroy the lives of the only people who ever cared about me. — Nenia Campbell

But I'm not hte only one to blame,' Midori continued. 'It's ture I've got a cold streak. I recognize that. But if they - my father and mother - had loved me a little more. I would have been able to feel more - to feel real sadness for example.'
'Do you think you weren't loved enough?'
She tilted her head and looked at me. Then she gave a sharp, little nod. 'Somewhere between 'not enough' and 'not at all.' 'I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it - to be fed so much love I couldn't take any more. Just once. But they never gave that to me. Never, not once. — Haruki Murakami

Fellow Englishman. Ladies and gentleman. You gather here today to see a live man become a dead one, and for my part you shall have satisfaction. But I would offer you a moral lesson to commemorate my passing; otherwise it might as well be bull baiting you witness here today. However I shall not deliver a warning that crime does not pay, for it pays very well; nor that a life of drink and debauchery leads inevitably to destruction, for I haven't led such a life. Here's what this little life of mine has taught me. There is only one reason to live, and there is only one reason to die, and that is love. If you have not known love, you have not lived. But if, when death comes to take your soul, you have loved someone dearly, then your soul is safe; for it lives in the bosom of your sweetheart, and death can make no claim upon it. That is all I know, and it is enough. Farewell. — Ben Tripp

The way Mom saw it, women should let menfolk do the work because it made them feel more manly. That notion only made sense if you had a strong man willing to step up and get things done, and between Dad's gimp, Buster's elaborate excuses, and Apache's tendency to disappear, it was often up to me to keep the place from falling apart. But even when everyone was pitching in, we never got out from under all the work. I loved that ranch, though sometimes it did seem that instead of us owning the place, the place owned us. — Jeannette Walls

Come out into the world about you, be it either wide or limited. Sympathize, not in thought only, but in action, with all about you. Make yourself known and felt for something that would be loved and missed, in twenty thousand little ways, if you were to die; then your life will be a happy one, believe me. — Charles Dickens

Hostage? She's holding me hostage. She has my guts in her hands. I don't care about the company, I care about her. She's my life, do you understand? Have you ever loved a woman? Have you ever held her at night so tight because you couldn't sleep thinking something might happen to her? Have you ever built a future around a woman? Ever thought of every tomorrow, every year, every decade with her? Dreamed of your old age holding her hand? I can only function with her in my life. I can only breathe if I know she's there. I gave her my fucking soul and she threw it away. Months ago, maybe years ago. She made a decision to throw me away. She's prepared for this divorce, and I'm swinging in the wind. Raw. With nothing. No defenses. Now what am I supposed to do?" I stood and threw my coat over my shoulders. "This is not about money. It's not about some publishing company. Not for me. If I don't do this, I have no chance of recovery. I'm as good as dead." ~Adam — C.D. Reiss

I thought that if I loved you hard enough, I could move mountains for you; I could make you fly. It didn't matter to me how that happened - just as long as it did. I wasn't thinking of who I might hurt, only who I could rescue. — Jodi Picoult

Isn't it so weird how the number of dead people is increasing even though the earth stays the same size, so that one day there isn't going to be room to bury anyone anymore? For my ninth birthday last year, Grandma gave me a subscription to National Geographic, which she calls "the National Geographic." She also gave me a white blazer, because I only wear white clothes, and it's too big to wear so it will last me a long time. She also gave me Grandpa's camera, which I loved for two reasons. I asked why he didn't take it with him when he left her. She said, "Maybe he wanted you to have it."
I said, "But I was negative-thirty years old." She said, "Still." Anyway, the fascinating thing was that I read in National Geographic that there are more people alive now than have died in all of human history. In other words, if everyone wanted to play Hamlet at once, they couldn't, because there aren't enough skulls! — Jonathan Safran Foer

A moment of grace. There rose up within me a profound sense of being loved. I felt "gathered together" and encircled by a Presence completely loving, as if I were enveloped by the music of a love song created just for me. It was not overwhelming or even emotional. Just a warm knowing that I was in God's loving embrace ... centered and unified there.
[Love]encounters cannot be analyzed, only shared. If you take a butterfly, Robert Frost said, and pin it down into a box, you no longer have a butterfly. — Sue Monk Kidd