Partners Love Quotes & Sayings

Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go ... But, of course, ceasing to be "in love" need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense - love as distinct from "being in love" - is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriage) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God ... "Being in love" first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it. — C.S. Lewis

Winning the love of a higher-status person is a widespread strategy for stimulating serotonin. Of course, we don't consciously equate love with status. But when a highstatus person of the right gender notices you, your brain lights up. Your neurochemistry screams "Go toward this. It is very good for your survival. " Even bonobos, the apes known for their sexual dynamism, compete vigorously for high-status partners — Anonymous

The confusion of love with abuse is what allows abusers who kill their partners to make the absurd claim that they were driven by the depths of their loving feelings. The news media regrettably often accept the aggressors' view of these acts, describing them as "crimes of passion." But what could more thoroughly prove that a man did not love his partner? If a mother were to kill one of her children, would we ever accept the claim that she did it because she was overwhelmed by how much she cared? Not for an instant. Nor should we. Genuine love means respecting the humanity of the other person, wanting what is best for him or her, and supporting the other person's self-esteem and independence. This kind of love is incompatible with abuse and coercion. — Lundy Bancroft

1. Romantic: One who ruthlessly believes in love in its finest form and impresses those feelings onto his or her various relationships. May result in scaring off partners, falling for the wrong person, and desperately trying to turn life into a movie with glamorous Old Hollywood actors. May also result in some of the best, most inspiring, and deepest relationships around. — Leah Konen

Marriage is a fierce battle before which the two partners ask heaven for its blessing, because loving each other is the most audacious of enterprises; the battle is not slow to start, and victory, that is to say freedom, goes to the cleverest. — Honore De Balzac

Surprisingly, a large number of people who fell out with their partners contacted us, saying that they would love to fly on a Virgle spaceship. But out of April Fools' jokes come real things, and I wouldn't be surprised, within the next 50 years, [if] there are one-way trips heading out into space with people on it. It would be very exciting. — Richard Branson

Without a doubt, my richest relationships are my long-term friendships with musical partners, because we make music together. That's what we love to do with our lives. — Chick Corea

It makes me think that everyone is very wrong, that love should have many conditions. Love should require both partners to be their very best at all times. Unconditional love is an undisciplined love, and as we all have seen, undisciplined love is disastrous. — Gillian Flynn

Some people think falling love with every 2nd person is true feeling and Emotions. but it's actually a dirty mind which force people to change partners for flirting game. — Mohammed Zaki Ansari

The parent who loves his child dearly but asks for nothing in return might qualify as a saint, but he will not qualify as a parent. For a child who can claim love without meeting any of the obligations of love will be a self-centered child and many such children have grown up in our time to become petulant lovers and sullen marriage partners because the promise of unconditional love has not been fulfilled. — Selma Fraiberg

We will attract potential partners who reflect back to us what we need to heal, balance and strengthen in ourselves- until we become whole. At that point, we can attract our twin flame or soul mate and enjoy a peaceful co- creative partnership that benefits all of mankind. — Dashama Konah Gordon

... Mrs. Warren allowed her book to fall closed upon her lap, and her attractive face awakened to an expression of agreeable expectation, in itself denoting the existence of interesting and desirable qualities in the husband at the moment inserting his latch-key in the front door preparatory to mounting the stairs and joining her. The man who, after twenty-five years of marriage, can call, by his return to her side, this expression to the countenance of an intelligent woman is, without question or argument, an individual whose life and occupations are as interesting as his character and points of view. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

They were partners. She would always make impulsive decisions and he would make slow, reasoned ones. He would always be a little terrified that she would look at him with the scorn he saw in his mother's eyes. And she would always be a little terrified that he would look at her and not love her enough.
In short, they were made for each other. — Eloisa James

If you knew, then why did you stay with someone like that? When choosing partners, you must be more prudent. -- Junpei

That's impossible, because...that's what falling in love is all about. It's like a car crash, or an avalanche. First you fall head down with love, then it feels like something fell from the sky on you. Either way, there's nothing you can do about it. It's almost impossible to have control of yourself. -- Ei — Yuuri Eda

Remember, couples come together out of an equal fear of intimacy. Our Enlightened Brains want to be intimate, but our Caveman Brains push against it, and so we search out pseudo-intimate relationships in an ultimately fruitless attempt to find true Connection. What's to be done? The Universe is always working for us and with us! Partners are the catalysts for each others' healing, growth, and spiritual evolution. We seek out, find, and love those people who cause us the most distress, but through our love we have this amazing opportunity to work on those barriers to intimacy that have prevented Connection. We can choose to heal the old traumas and live lives of incredible peace, spiritual prosperity, and enlightenment. — Carol Clark

Most folks think they married because they "fell in love." There's an argument to be made that "falling" in love is actually an unstable condition -- maybe even an emotional illness! Oftentimes it has to do with the way the partners are unbalanced, rather than having anything to do with love. Some of us marry our disowned or disused personality parts and call it "falling in love. — Bruce Fisher

Churches are the primary partners that work with Habitat in an almost infinite variety of creative overlapping circles. We cherish these partnerships with churches ... I have always seen Habitat for Humanity as a servant of the church and as a vehicle through which the church and its people can express their love, faith, and servanthood to people in need in a very tangible and concrete (literally!) way. — Millard Fuller

Fears and expectations that date back to earlier experiences of dependency, but that didn't arise during courtship or dating, are activated as commitment to the relationship increases. As a result, partners start to anticipate the worst, not the best from their relationship. — Stan Tatkin

You soak up my soul and mingle me. Each drop of my blood cries out to the earth. We are partners, blended as one. — Rumi

The first of these is learning to relate to potential partners out of a sense of respect, genuine caring, friendship, love, and true intimacy. Too often, young men and women seek to meet their own personal needs by manipulating others. This style of relating to others becomes so habitual that it becomes difficult to access and utilize more genuine styles of relating. — Thomas A Parham

I'm not sure I ever want to get married. I'm neither messing around while waiting nor looking for some "real thing." What I want is much more complicated. I want somebody I can talk to about books, who would be my friend, and why couldn't we have sex as well if we wanted to? (And used contraception.) I'm not looking for romance. Lord Peter and Harriet would seem a pretty good model to me. — Jo Walton

Significantly, romantic friendships can coexist with the fact of partners' marrying because their reason for being is not to replace marriage but to open the possibility of sustained, committed true love existing among friends, and not just same-sex friends. No matter that our chosen relationship commitments change. Those of us who have long-term romantic friendships, some that have lasted longer than any of our marriages or partnerships, do not fear that these commitments will falter if we create primary bonds. — Bell Hooks

If you go against growth, you go against yourself. How ready are we to face, accept and deal with the situations that comes to us unexpectedly in our partners. It takes a big heart to face situations but above all it takes simplicity, humility and self denial to show true love and care. — William Pious Akakpo

1. Project What is the project? Why is it unique? Why is the business needed? Why will customers love your product? 2. Partners Who are you? Who are the partners? What are your educational backgrounds? How much experience do you all have? How are you and your partners qualified to make the project a success? 3. Financing What is the total cost of the project? How much debt and how much equity is there? Are partners investing their own money? What is the investor's return and reward for their risk? What are the tax consequences? Who is your CFO or accounting firm? Who is responsible for investor communications? What is the investor's exit? 4. Management Who is running your company? What is their experience? What is their track record? Have they ever failed? How does their experience relate to your industry? Do you believe this is the strongest management team you can assemble? Can you pitch them with confidence? — Donald J. Trump

If there's anything I know about directing, it's how to make actors comfortable. It's where I started and it's what I know, and it's what I love. I like when the actors are really partners and I want them to be excited and I want them to surprise me. I don't want them to be puzzle pieces. — John Cameron Mitchell

Love should require both partners to be very best at all times. — Gillian Flynn

Function words behave differently than you might think. For example, the most commonly used word in spoken English, I, is used at far higher rates by followers than by leaders, truth-tellers than liars. People who use high rates of articles - a, an, the - do better in college than low users. And if you want to find your true love, compare the ways you use function words with that of your prospective partners. — James W. Pennebaker

We are born, we grow up, we live our lives as best we can. If we are thoughtful we are good parents and good partners. If we are wise we strive for integrity and intimacy. If we are fortunate we discover love and joy. If we are able, we make the world a little better than we found it. That is all there is for any of us. — Robert B. Reich

Both spouses are equal, yet different. One of the most beautiful things about a relationship is that the feminine energy can feed a masculine man's heart. And, the masculine energy can totally light up the feminine energy. — Renee Wade

It is probably not love that makes the world go around, but rather those mutually supportive alliances through which partners recognize their dependence on each other for the achievement of shared and private goals. — Fred Allen

It is in the rules, a woman like that. There is no choice. With someone like Sophie, you are part of a greater agency, you make sure things are going right for her. If she is not mean-spirited or too selfish, you fall in love. You grow up, you become a man, you realize you have clear responsibilities. Then you are truly with her. You are partners. — Chang-rae Lee

The origin of the word gender means to bring forth and to sort or class. Somewhere along the way it was decided that a baby girl was second-class to a baby boy. That's just not true or right. By Divine design one gender cannot exist without the other. We are partners in life. When can we start acting like we can't live without each other ... because we can't? — Toni Sorenson

A lot of times you're around men who are so in love with their wives or partners that they don't have anything to offer any other woman in conversation. Especially single women. But Sam and Dom and Abe can be in love with you three and still make a girl feel as if she has some kind of sex appeal. That's nice. — Melina Marchetta

necessarily surface in conscious awareness, because this type of anticipation resides in the deep and wordless part of the brain. Much of what we do as partners is fundamentally about survival and our beastly, instinctual selves. In fact, we could say the human species has survived over millennia due to the simple imperative "Thou shall not get killed." Love and war are both conditions of our human brain. Arguably, though, the brain is wired first and foremost for war, rather than for love. Its primary function is to ensure we survive as individuals and as a species. And it is very, very good at this. — Stan Tatkin

Passing Proposition 8 did not stop LGBTQ couples from going to sleep that night with their partners. What it did accomplish, however, was remind the gay community once again that they are not looked at as equals, that the God of so many does not love them. — Timothy Kurek

Growth is a detox process, as our weakest, darkest places are sucked up to the surface in order to be released ... often, it is not a change in partners but rather a change in perception that delivers us to the love we seek. — Marianne Williamson

Jeanno, women can love so much more intelligently then us men! They never love a man for his body, even if they can enjoy that too ---- and how." Joaquin sighed with pleasure. "But women love you for your character, your strength, your intelligence. Or because you can protect a child. Because you're a good person, you're honorable and dignified. They never love you as stupidly as men love women. Not because you've got especially beautiful calves or look so good in a suit that their business partners look on jealously when they introduce you. Such women do exist, but only as a cautionary example to others. — Nina George

Why, when people are leaving their partners because they're having an affair with someone else, do they think it will seem better to pretend there is no one else involved? Do they think it will be less hurtful for their partners to think they just walked out because they couldn't stand them any more and then had the good fortune to meet some tall Omar Sharif-figure with a gentleman's handbag two weeks afterwards while the ex-partner is spending his evenings bursting into tears at the sight of the toothbrush mug? It's like those people who invent a lie as an excuse rather than the truth, even when the truth is better than the lie. — Helen Fielding

Love is unconditional acceptance. It is love of parents for child; also the non-possessive love of partners; also the caring love between all people that enables forgiveness. It's above energy, though it may be expressed energetically. It's our essential nature: Spirit itself, the quality we share with God. And it is the binding force of the Universe, inherent in all that is. — Peter Shepherd

If they love their children parents must, sparingly and carefully perhaps but nonetheless actively, confront and criticize them from time to time, just as they must allow their children to confront and criticize themselves in turn. Similarly, loving spouses must repeatedly confront each other if the marriage relationship is to serve the function of promoting the spiritual growth of the partners. — M. Scott Peck

It's never ok to hit a girl. Never. Not even if she cheats on you. A girl is not your property. She's a human being. She is just as important as you. She is your equal. And her wishes and feelings are just as valid as yours. All you can do is treat her nice, and hope she wants to be with you. If she chooses to be with you, great! If not, or if she chooses to leave you at some point, you have to let her go. You have no right to stop her. You don't own her, and you don't have the right to tell her what to do. She's your partner. Not your servant, not your sex slave, and not your punching bag. — Oliver Markus

When we see love as the will to nurture one's own or another's spiritual growth, revealed through acts of care, respect, knowing, and assuming responsibility, the foundation of all love in our life is the same. There is no special love exclusively reserved for romantic partners. Genuine love is the foundation of our engagement with ourselves, with family, with friends, with partners, with everyone we choose to love. — Bell Hooks

I'll live to be one year younger, because I can't stand the idea of a world without you in it, and die buried beneath an avalanche of my own books. — Lance Olsen

The psychological origins of love are in attachment to parents and sexual partners. We do not attach to ourselves; we do not seek security and fulfillment in ourselves. — Jonathan Haidt

And this charge plays out with partners, parents, friends, families and even our children. Many parents unconsciously 'use' their children so the parent can feel loved, important, special, and needed under the mask of being unconditionally loving to their children. The parent needs the child in order for the parent to feel love. This need is not love, simply another excuse for the parent to not feel their own lack and wound, and of course when the child acts up and does not meet their expectations, then the child receives harmful projections and verbal and physical abuse. — Padma Aon Prakasha

Choice: that was the thing. Other people claimed that you can't choose who you love
it just happens!
but Grace and Roman knew that was a bunch of happy horseshit. Of course you chose who you loved. If you didn't choose, you ended up with what was left
the drunks and abusers, the debtors and vacuums, the ones who ate their food too fast or had never read a novel. Damn, marriage was hard work, was manual labor, and unpaid manual labor at that. Yet, year after year, Grace and Roman had pressed their shoulders against the stone and rolled it up the hill together. — Sherman Alexie

May every man find the softest and most fragile expression of his personality with the right woman who would treasure and honour the beauty of his femininity and not misuse it and may all women find empowering and supportive men who would exult in her self expression and success without fear of being overshadowed by the power of her masculinity and in that beautiful new world, shall we enter as partners, equal and empowering, supporting and caring, vulnerable and strong. — Srividya Srinivasan

Friends can be said to "fall in like" with as profound a thud as romantic partners fall in love. — Letty Cottin Pogrebin

The land's fruitfulness is the "natural" consequence of covenant faithfulness enacted on both sides, Israel's and God's. A productive land is a gift something like a child to a healthy marriage; in each case, thriving results from and witnesses to long-sustained faithfulness between two partners. — Ellen F. Davis

Love is not really a mystery. It is a process like anything else. A process that requires trust, effort, focus and commitment by two willing partners — Elizabeth Bourgeret

People are using the lifestyle to serve their selfishness, not their partners. So much of it is based on pleasure only, rather than love. ~Lucian Bane~ — Lucian Bane

The fact is that it's extremely rare to find anyone who has had only one sexual
partner for his or her entire life. These days, it's increasingly unusual to
find anyone who has only had one "significant other" throughout his or
her life. So the question is not so much whether to love more than one
but rather whether it works better to have multiple partners sequentially
or at the same time. There are definitely some people who are far better off taking it one at a time, and there are some situations that cry out for other possibilities. — Deborah Anapol

I think that's why so many couples fight, because they want their partners to validate them and affirm them, and if they don't get that, they feel as though they're going to die. And so they lash out. But it's a terrible thing to wake up and realize the person you just finished crucifying wasn't Jesus. — Donald Miller

One partner is always more in love than the other. — Francoise Sagan

Trust is the heartbeat of genuine love. And we trust that the attention our partners give friends, or vice versa, does not take anything away from us - we are not diminished. What we learn through experience is that our capacity to establish deep and profound connections in friendship strengthens all our intimate bonds. — Bell Hooks

When God makes a covenant with us, God says: 'I will love you with an everlasting love. I will be faithful to you, even when you run away from me, reject me, or betray me.' In our society we don't speak much about covenants; we speak about contracts. When we make a contract with a person, we say: 'I will fulfill my part as long as you fulfill yours. When you don't live up to your promises, I no longer have to live up to mine.' Contracts are often broken because the partners are unwilling or unable to be faithful to their terms.
But God didn't make a contract with us; God made a covenant with us, and God wants our relationships with one another to reflect that covenant. That's why marriage, friendship, life in community are all ways to give visibility to God's faithfulness in our lives together. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

What do we do now?"
"Well, we escape. I'm not sure how yet, but - "
"No," said Valkyrie. "What do we do now? We're partners. You're my best friend. I love you. You were my ... I looked up to you. What am I supposed to do now?"
He turned away. "You need to find yourself a new hero. — Derek Landy

We must see ourselves as co-manifestors
partners in manifestation
all engaged in the primal act of unfoldment and emergence. Each act of manifestation may be directed toward a specific outcome, but it also contributes to the greater manifestation of the wholeness, love, compassion, and creativity of the primal source from which we all come. — David Spangler

True love, the good, the beautiful, one-and-only kind, the kind between loving friends and family and partners who are mostly just trying hard to do their best, it managers to overlook some pieces of its story. — Deb Caletti

Amazing relationships aren't about making one perfect choice in your choice of partner. They're about the infinite amount of choices you make in each conflict, each conversation, and each moment to open yourself and to stay open, even when it's hard. — Vironika Tugaleva

I realize more than ever that this ministry has been a team effort. Without the help of our prayer partners, our financial supporters, our staff, and our board of directors - this ministry and all of our dreams to spread the Good News of God's love throughout the world would not have been possible. — Billy Graham

Two people should see a relationship as a constant opportunity to improve and be improved. When lovers teach each other uncomfortable truths, they are not giving up on love. They are trying to do something very true to love: which is to make their partners more loveable. — The School Of Life

It's all about our egos. She felt she was on the edge of understanding something important. They could fall in love with fresh, new people, or they could have the courage and humility to tear off some essential layer of themselves and reveal to each other a whole new level of otherness, a level far beyond what sort of music they liked. It seemed to her everyone had too much self-protective pride to truly strip down to their souls in front of their long-term partners. It was easier to pretend there was nothing more to know, to fall into an easygoing companionship. It was almost embarrassing to be truly intimate with your spouse; how could you watch someone floss one minute, and the next minute share your deepest passion or most ridiculous, trite little fears? It was almost easier to talk about that sort of thing before you'd shared a bathroom and a bank account and argued over the packing of the dishwasher. — Liane Moriarty

Sometimes you meet someone, and it's so clear that the two of you, on some level belong together. As lovers, or as friends, or as family, or as something entirely different. You just work, whether you understand one another or you're in love or you're partners in crime. You meet these people throughout your life, out of nowhere, under the strangest circumstances, and they help you feel alive. I don't know if that makes me believe in coincidence, or fate, or sheer blind luck, but it definitely makes me believe in something. — Auliq Ice

Walk in Love EPHESIANS 5 j Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2And k walk in love, l as Christ loved us and m gave himself up for us, a n fragrant o offering and sacrifice to God. 3But p sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness q must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. 4Let there be r no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, s which are out of place, but instead t let there be thanksgiving. 5For you may be sure of this, that u everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous ( v that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6 w Let no one x deceive you with empty words, for because of these things y the wrath of God comes upon z the sons of disobedience. 7Therefore a do not become partners with them; 8for b at one time you were c darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. d Walk as children of light — Anonymous

We have these services that people love and that are drivers of data usage ... and we want to work this out, so that way, it's a profitable model for our partners. — Mark Zuckerberg

Then again, you cannot stop the flood of desire as it moves through the world, inappropriate though it may sometimes be. It is the prerogative of all humans to make ludicrous choices, to fall in love with the most unlikely of partners, and to set themselves up for the most predicatable of calamities. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Any husband who says, "My wife and I are completely equal partners," is talking about either a law firm or a hand of bridge. — Bill Cosby

An enormous round egg snatching and castrating the agile sperm;
monstorous and stuffed, the queen termite reigning over the servile
males; the praying mantis and the spider, gorged on love, crushing
their partners and gobbling them up; the dog in heat running through
back alleys, leaving perverse smells in her wake; the monkey showing
herself off brazenly, sneaking away with flirtatious hypocrisy. And
the most splendid wildcats, the tigress, lioness, and panther, lie
down slavishly under the male's imperial embrace, inert, impatient,
shrewd, stupid, insensitive, lewd, fierce, and humiliated — Simone De Beauvoir

Write 100 things that you love about your partner. It's another way of keeping yourself in check. It's hard to do. — Chris Pirillo

Say yes,' he whispers. 'Marry me.'

I hesitate. I open my eyes. 'You will get my fortune,' I remark. 'When I marry you, everything I have becomes yours. Just as George has everything that belongs to Isabel.'

'That's why you can trust me to win it for you,' he says simply. 'When your interests and mine are the same, you can be certain that I will care for you as for myself. You will be my own. You will find that I care for my own.'

'You will be true to me?'

'Loyalty is my motto. When I give my word, you can trust me. — Philippa Gregory

Puritans called marriage "the little church within the Church," a place to test and also develop spiritual character. Every day marriage calls both partners to love and forgive and stay faithful - hard work that only makes sense if we are convinced somehow that we are participating in a kind of alternate history, one set in eternity. I persevere in the difficult times in my marriage for the same reason I persevere in the difficult times in my faith: because I believe that both touch something of eternal significance. — Philip Yancey

Genuine love is between two people who know they are already complete. Genuine love is based on a new paradigm in which both partners are committed to the celebration of each other and their loved ones. — Gay Hendricks

We originally developed 'The Client List' along with Lifetime as a TV movie - my manager and I became partners on the project. Then, we brought in Howard Braunstein on the project and produced it along with Lifetime. — Jennifer Love Hewitt

As the boys screamed and hauled off handfuls of mulch, Olivier had slowly, deliberately, gently taken Gabri's hand and held it before gracefully lifting it to his lips. The boys had watched, momentarily stunned, as Olivier had kissed Gabri's manure-stained hand with his manure-stained lips. The boys had seemed petrified by this act of love and defiance. But just for a moment. Their hatred triumphed and soon their attack had re-doubled. — Louise Penny

Haven't you realized that pleasure, which is indeed certainly the one and only reason for the two sexes to come together, is nevertheless not enough to establish a relationship between them? And that though this pleasure is preceded by desire which draws people together, it is however followed by aversion which pushes them apart? It's a law of nature which only love can change. Can we feel love whenever we want? Yet love is always needed, which would be a dreadfully tiresome thing if it hadn't fortunately been realized that it's enough for just one of the partners to feel it, thereby halving the problem, and without even incurring any great loss; in fact, one party is happy to love, the other to please, which is actually a bit less exciting but which can be combined with the pleasure of deceiving and that evens things out, so everyone's happy. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

I have never said that love is destroyed by marriage. How can marriage destroy love? Yes, it is destroyed in marriage, but it is destroyed by you, not by marriage. It is destroyed by the partners. How can marriage destroy love? It is you who destroy it, because you don't know what love is. You simply pretend to know, you simply hope that you know, you dream that you know, but you don't know what love is. Love has to be learned; it is the greatest art there is. — Rajneesh

He said:To love, we need passion, but also respect. Once, someone told me that all you needed to build lasting happiness was a woman who admired and respected her man. But now, I know that's wrong. Happiness is much more difficult to attain. It's like crossing a suspension bridge; it's fragile, shaky, and there's no guardrail. You have to find your own equilibrium. And for that to happen, it has to rest on two centers of gravity, on both partners. — Duong Thu Huong

For me, marriage should be about partnership. How can you love someone you have to take care of like a child all the time? A wife is supposed to be a partner, and yes partners help each other when they need it, but they are supposed to be together because they want to in my book, not because one needs the other. — Lynsay Sands

When Black and White are colors and not races, people will still fall in love and discriminate between partners and feel sad and bad and need art that breaks your heart and takes you to those places where pain becomes beauty. — Marlene Dumas

You are the indispensable agent of change. You should not be daunted by the magnitude of the task before you. Your contribution can inspire others, embolden others who are timid, to stand up for the truth in the midst of a welter of distortion, propaganda, and deceit; stand up for human rights where these are being violated with impunity; stand up for justice, freedom, and love where they are trampled underfoot by injustice, oppression, hatred, and harsh cruelty; stand up for human dignity and decency at times when these are in desperately short supply. God calls on us to be his partners to work for a new kind of society where people count; where people matter more than things, more than possessions; where human life is not just respected but positively revered; where people will be secure and not suffer from the — Desmond Tutu

Appalling things can happen to children. And even a happy childhood is filled with sadnesses. Is there any other period in your life when you hate your best friend on Monday and love them again on Tuesday? But at eight, 10, 12, you don't realise you're going to die. There is always the possibility of escape. There is always somewhere else and far away, a fact I had never really appreciated until I read Gitta Sereny's profoundly unsettling Cries Unheard about child-killer Mary Bell.
At 20, 25, 30, we begin to realise that the possibilities of escape are getting fewer. We begin to picture a time when there will no longer be somewhere else and far away. We have jobs, children, partners, debts, responsibilities. And if many of these things enrich our lives immeasurably, those shrinking limits are something we all have to come to terms with.
This, I think, is the part of us to which literary fiction speaks. — Mark Haddon

Do You Believe
... on this road of life
on this day
I take you
now husband and wife ... — Muse

They could fall in love with fresh, new people, or they could have the courage and humility to tear off some essential layer of themselves and reveal to each other a whole new level of otherness, a level far beyond what sort of music they liked. It seemed to her everyone had too much self-protective pride to truly strip down to their souls in front of their long-term partners. It was easier to pretend there was nothing more to know, to fall into an easygoing companionship. — Liane Moriarty

Susanna and Lord Rycliff had, in her observation, the ideal marriage. They understood one another, completely and implicitly. They disagreed and argued openly, demanded a great deal of each other and themselves, and they loved one another through it all. They were partners. Not just in love, but in life. — Tessa Dare

Love makes us wake up in the morning with a sense of purpose and a flow of creative ideas. Love floods our nervous system with positive energy, making us far more attractive to prospective employers, clients, and creative partners. Love fills us with powerful charisma, enabling us to produce new ideas and new projects, even within circumstances that seem to be limited. Love leads us to atone for our errors and clean up the mess when we've made mistakes. Love leads us to act with impeccability, integrity, and excellence. Love leads us to serve, to forgive, and to hope. Those things are the opposite of a poverty consciousness; they're the stuff of spiritual wealth creation. — Marianne Williamson

Although much of the work we do in committed relationships we do with our partners, sometimes it's necessary to start with ourselves. — Sharon Salzberg

These dogs are not machines, goddamnit. They are alive! They are living, feeling, warm-blooded creatures of God, and they will love you with all their hearts! They will love you when your wives and husbands sneak behind your backs. They will love you when your ungrateful misbegotten children piss on your graves! They will see and witness your greatest shame, and will not judge you! These dogs will be the truest and best partners you can ever hope to have, and they will give their lives for you. And all they ask, all they want or need, all it costs YOU to get ALL of that, is a simple word of kindness. — Robert Crais

We all like to think that if we were the victims of domestic abuse we'd up and leave - but it's not always as easy or straightforward as that. Women stay with abusive partners for all kinds of reasons - they love them, they fear them, they have children with them, they believe they can change them or they simply have no where else to go. — Kate Thornton

My husband and I see each other only on weekends, and generally get along well. We're like good friends, life partners able to spend some pleasant time together. We talk about all sorts of things, and we trust each other implicitly. Where and how he has a sex life I don't know,and I don't really care. We never make love, though
never even touch each other. I feel bad about it, but I don't want to touch him. I just don't want to. — Haruki Murakami

Trustworthy partners always think first before they do anything that may affect either the reputation or well-being of each other. — Chris Prentiss

In the purest sensual and intimate act of lovemaking, there is a give and take, and both partners actively choose among and agree to the expressions. In reciprocal lovemaking, a woman is equally satisfied and drives the experience just as much as her man. — J.F. Kelly

True love, the good, beautiful, one-and-only kind, the kind between loving friends and family and partners who are mostly just trying hard to do their best, it manages to overlook some pieces of its story. It overlooks what he can't give you or how she failed you or what mistakes he made when he was struggling. It stays steady at its center. It evolves, through drought and storm. It grows. It survives. — Deb Caletti

Erotic attraction often serves as the catalyst for an intimate connection between two people, but it is not a sign of love. Exciting, pleasurable sex can take place between two people who do not even know each other. Yet the vast majority of males in our society are convinced that their erotic longing indicates who they should, and can, love. Led by their penis, seduced by erotic desire, they often end up in relationships with partners with whom they share no common interests of values. — Bell Hooks

As the cards fluttered to earth, as everyone's hand was revealed as worthless, as every point won was shown to be a pointless charade, she would tell them how wonderful this other man was, and how if she didn't see him for another thirty years she would still love him, how she would still love him if he was dead until she was dead too. But instead she watched as Harry Robertson played the right bower, and he and Keith, who always played as partners, won the hand. — Richard Flanagan

In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding they be what we need of them, and then feeling devastated when they refuse to perform the role we created in the first place. — Elizabeth Gilbert

People falling in love for one reason may fall out of love due to another reason. However, if faith or trust is the basis of love, it does not break easily. Often people use all their reasoning to understand each other and even live together for years to satisfy themselves that they are in love. However, marriages based on such logical love, the love based on reason, do not last long. Quite to the contrary, marriages where the partners do not even know each other, survive for life - being based on mutual trust and faith. — Awdhesh Singh

True love is wanting to spend the rest of your life with someone you would sometimes also like to strangle. — Crystal Woods

Marriages we regard as the happiest are those in which each of the partners believes he or she got the best of it. — Sydney J. Harris

Cat's Claws. "This looks . . . interesting," I said, flipping it over to read the summary. "The guy has two partners. One is the human named Cat, and then she has a Werecat." I glanced up at him. "As a pet. A pet they both have sex with." "It sounded rather cerebral." "You got this off the dollar table, didn't you?" "I did. It looks smashingly crude, though, so I knew you'd love it. — Christina Lauren