Quotes & Sayings About Real Love Relationships

Not every girl has a bad-boy problem. Some of my friends get into relationships constantly. Others cheat all the time, or run away. Some get jealous. Some think they are too undateable to even try. Our dating pool is a circus of fuckups, misfits, and past mistakes that we keep on making. The brand of baggage you're carrying on your back is the issue. But most of all, I think we fear the same thing. I think that thing is love. Real love. Think of your first love. Think of how Bambi-like you were, prancing around all excited and in love with everything. Then think of how that happiness was beaten to death with a hatchet, spit on, shit on, leaving you cold. If you watch something you care about get destroyed, you're not going to want to go back to that place, no matter how pleasant it ever was. — Alida Nugent

Friendship is the call out of isolation and selfishness in order to teach me how to love and how to serve. But without stability, friendship - real soul-searing friendship, the kind that makes us choose between domination and infatuation and possessiveness and dependence for growth and freedom and depth and responsibility and self-knowledge - is impossible.
Stability is what enables us, in other words, to live totally in God and totally for others. — Joan D. Chittister

We learn from conflicts only when we are willing to do so. — Sharon Salzberg

I had a dream about you. In my dreams you are always different, perhaps even more real to me. How can I explain this to you? It seems like in my dreams I envision parts of you that you prefer keep under surface. You hide from me, as if there was something to hide. You push me away, in fear. Now, I know you are not afraid of me, but that you can't trust yourself, since it's beyond your control. I know it's frightening to love someone that much. I know it because I am afraid, too. And I just wish that for once, we would be afraid together. — Aleksandra Ninkovic

Letting go of the belief that we're powerless to help relieve our own suffering enhances our ability not only to heal but also to genuinely love and receive the love of others. — Sharon Salzberg

Real people have a way of banging against the doors you've closed; they know your name, your phone number. They live with you. — David Leavitt

People use masks in public and then wonder why their personal life, their relationships, don't work. If you're not being honest with others, there's nothing real about yourself to learn and, the wider the gap, the deeper the suffering. The heart wasn't meant to be closed in a box made of fake feelings and thoughts. — Robin Sacredfire

Roy writes: When you no longer need to feign an identity that isn't yours, you'll discover confidence and the ability to say, "This is who I am," and speak out on any issue that stirs your heart and mind. By announcing your presence, others will come out to you who you didn't previously know shared your nontheism. You'll finally be able to meet other nontheists and build relationships based on truth and honesty. You can love and be loved by people who know the real you. No matter what you've been told, that person deserves to see the light of day. — Roy Speckhardt

When our focus is on seeking, perfecting, or clinging to romance, the charge is often generated by instability, rather than by an authentic connection with another person. — Sharon Salzberg

Part of the problem with the word 'disabilities' is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can't feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren't able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities. — Fred Rogers

A broken heart is just the growing pains necessary so that you can love more completely when the real thing comes along. — J.S.B. Morse

We cannot simply forgive and forget, nor should we. — Sharon Salzberg

You don't have to love yourself unconditionally before you can give or receive real love. — Sharon Salzberg

Love is a living capacity within us that is always present, even when we don't sense it. — Sharon Salzberg

...it's been amazing- not perfect, but amazing. I'm actually glad of the nonperfection because that has made our relationship feel more grounded, solid, and real than what I had (...), which just cruised blithely along, deceptively perfect, until it crashed and burned in a fiery wreck. — Sherri Rifkin

Worried about fitting in, being part of a group, feeling accepted? People gather in groups of similar interests, but these interests are usually based on external preferences and attires.
"We think that if other people like this sport or activity, they'll accept us without an interview or further questions, and we need that because we are afraid of standing naked in front of others, of showing whom we really are underneath the fake smiles and bland expressions of anger and pain: this nakedness is one of the heart and mind.
"It's within these groups that most people find their 'soul-mates' and 'fall in love' with the person they'll never get to know for real.
"Little did you know, you have to keep pretending to be someone else, while your partner is exhausted from having to put on a daily show just to please you. — Nityananda Das

Life is real, not ideal. — Heather Muzik

The less you demand total fulfillment from relationships, the more you can appreciate them for the beautiful tapestries they are, in which absolute and relative, perfect and imperfect, infinite and finite are marvelously interwoven. You can stop fighting the shifting tides of relative love and learn to ride them instead. And you come to appreciate more fully the simple, ordinary heroism involved in opening to another person and forging real intimacy. — John Welwood

The values and the relationships of the people I love around me are my real riches. That's my lasting wealth. — Larry Sanders

Others hide from being real by filling the air with words; the more words they throw out, the less actual communication happens and they are left with only an illusion of connection. This is the intimacy they so ardently seek but with these coping skills find so elusive. — David W. Earle

Live a real experience of love is one of the greatest pleasures of life. It feels like the soul, but to express the feelings depends on the ideas of each. Constrain the love of our neurotic needs and we with him. Live a life trying to make others take responsibility for our needs as we recklessly abandon.

We want to be loved and not love, we want to be understood and we do not understand, we want the support of others and we give our them. When we abandon ourselves, we want to find someone who will fill the hole that we dug. The dissatisfaction, emptiness turn on continual search for new relationships, the results will be repeated frustrating.

Each is solely responsible for their own purposes. Only those who can find love in your life One Love Truth
— Zibia Gasparetto

Through my love for you, I want to express my love for the whole cosmos, the whole of humanity, and all beings. By living with you, I want to learn to love everyone and all species. If I succeed in loving you, I will be able to love everyone and all species on Earth ... This is the real message of love. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Often in close relationships, the subject being discussed is not the subject at all. — Sharon Salzberg

When relationships have outlived their shelf life, people often realize that at some level, they are sticking it our because they once thought in the light of their divine love that the other person would change. Sorry for breaking the poetic hope here, but that doesn't happen. People are like rubber bands. They may be able to stretch from time to time and do some amazing things, but in general they are who they are. If manipulation and machinations on your side get them to behave the way you want, I will set my clock on the fact that they will return to their previous way of behaving, or they will keep faking it. To be in a relationship with someone who is not really there doesn't make sense. People who aren't cooperating feel like a project to us, like something for us to rescue or fix. Rescuing is the province of firefighters and fairy tales, but it's not real life. The stance of sticking it out in hopes of redemption is an old story and one that has wasted many lives. — Ramani Durvasula

There are no different categories of love. There isn't one kind of love between a mother and child, another between lovers, and another between friends. The love that is real is the love that lies at the heart of all relationships. That is the love of God and it doesn't change with form or circumstance. — Marianne Williamson

Cultivating loving kindness for ourselves is the foundation of real love for our friends and family, for new people we encounter in our daily lives, for all beings and for life itself. — Sharon Salzberg

Easily he had turned studying my least favorite subject in history into my now most memorable one. Then there was his want to make our relationship more real than superficial, something very new to me. Though I was one relationship more knowledgeable than he was, it always felt like he knew more than I did of how relationships where built for the long run. Then again, he could have just learned that from watching his parents or maybe the innocence of our relationship just made him want to keep it pure and real. Like digging deep and wanting to get to know me, not just make out sessions every time we were together. Augusto knew more of the real me, the girl who wants to be a history teacher, enjoys her fries with garlic and cheese, and appreciates when a boy doesn't complain when plans are made with my friends and he isn't a part of them. — Christina Marie Morales

No connection is always easy or free of strife, no matter how many minutes a day we meditate. It's how we relate to conflict, as well as to our differing needs and expectations, that makes our relationships sustainable. — Sharon Salzberg

I Want you to know one thing, I will always be true to you, and I will always say to you, I love you. — Auliq Ice

You could spend a lifetime waiting for someone to love the real you but if you don't know who you really are, you are wasting your time. — Keysha Jade

One foundation of loving relationships is curiosity, keeping open to the idea that we have much to learn even about those we have been close to for decades. — Sharon Salzberg

With our close friends, family members, and lovers, we hope to create a special world, one in which we can expect to be treated fairly, with care, tenderness, and compassion. — Sharon Salzberg

There are all these relationships that are like cookie cutter shapes; identical and repetitive. Then there are all these relationships that aren't even relationships! Just facades for show and tell. But every once and a while, you'll see this bird breaking out of this cage and it's so weird and it's so obscure and you've hardly ever seen it before so you don't even know at first if you should name it Ugly or Beautiful! Relationships, stories of love, that just shatter the walls around the mind. They made it. They broke through. Like Ugly-Beautiful birds bursting forth from rusty cages! And then suddenly you stop and you think to yourself, "Maybe love really is real. — C. JoyBell C.

Loving yourself isn't just about celebrating your accomplishments and nurturing your talents. Those things are nice, sure. But that's not how we know others love us. We know others love us when they see us with our face on the ground, crying and weak, feeling like we've got nothing to offer the world - and they smile, and they reach out, and they love us anyway. Loving yourself is what you do when you fail, when you don't know, when you screw up, when you forget, when you lose everything. Loving yourself is what you do when you can't approve of what you've done. Loving yourself is what you do when you're not sure if it's going to get better. Loving yourself is what you must do in those moments when you can't like yourself. Real love is when you reach out for no good reason at all, except to love. — Vironika Tugaleva

Forgiveness can be bittersweet. It contains the sweetness of the release of a story that has caused us pain, but also the poignant reminder that even our dearest relationships change over the course of a lifetime. — Sharon Salzberg

Once you decide not to worry about that stuff anymore, dating and relationships and love and all that, it's like you're free to get on with real life. — David Nicholls

In this space,

We do raw
We do loud hearts
& truthful art

We do open arms
& unfettered forgiveness

We do real
We do vulnerable
We do wild

In this space,
We do love

In all the shapes
& forms
That we come in

We do love — Bryonie Wise

I have always been a lone wolf and in the real sense of the word (people say it all the time but it's usually not true.) I feel like I watch people and I wonder why they do things. Especially when it comes to love and relationships: most of the time I am thinking "Why are they together when they are not meant to be together?" but then I realize that they don't know that they're not meant to be together; it's just me who knows things like that! And I don't see any importance in all the other reasons why people usually want to be together - because it looks good, because it's convenient, because it's a fun game to play ... the only reason to be with someone is if you are meant for someone. You're a wolf and they're a wolf too and you look at each other and you say "You're my family, you're my home." Well, that's how I think. — C. JoyBell C.

I think the tingles are important. They are real, and I am in favor of their survival. But they are not the basis for a satisfactory marriage. I am not suggesting that on should marry without the tingles. Those warm, excited feelings, the chill bumps, that sense of acceptance, the excitement of the touch that make up the tingles serve as the cherry on top of the sundae. But you cannot have a sundae with only the cherry. — Gary Chapman

A real relationship doesn't properly begin until the NRE burns away. That's when you have to start dealing with this person as an all-around human being, replete with irritating little habits. When disillusion sets in, love can begin. — Anthony D. Ravenscroft

I went into show business because I love to work with people, and what I enjoy most about acting is rehearsing and getting to know people and their talents, forming relationships. Working in this business, barriers drop and you get into people real quickly. — Scott Bakula

Then when Matt had come along it hadn't been fireworks, passion and fights and drama. It had been low- key, sweet, lovely. But that didn't meant it wasn't the real thing. It never had done. Just because it wasn't suprising hadn't meant it wasn't right. — Jenny Colgan

If he can't handle you at your worst then he does not deserve you at your best. Real love means seeing beyond the words spoken out of pain, and instead seeing a person's soul. — Shannon L. Alder

Love alone is worthless. It cannot sustain a relationship ... any relationship — Alice Walsh

When we love someone our love becomes demonstrable or real only through our exertion - through the fact that for that someone (or for ourself) we take an extra step or walk an extra mile. Love is not effortless. To the contrary, love is effortful. — M. Scott Peck

From our first breath to our last, we're presented again and again with the opportunity to experience deep, lasting, and trans-formative connection with other beings: to love them and be loved by them; to show them our true natures and to recognize theirs. — Sharon Salzberg

I'll date you, love ... not you and your iPad. I can't feel plastic palm play; I'm live like Memorex. — T.F. Hodge

You will know it is love not when you think about them all the time or want to be with them, but when you worry about them and you want their approval and happiness. — Shannon L. Alder

But when you love somebody, things don't always go the way you want them to. Sometimes you have to stick through adversity and not give up. You know, I think love can be a test. When it gets difficult, that's when we learn if our love is real, and if we have the devotion to be true to it in spite of all the heartaches. — Chris Coppernoll

Feelings of apathy as they relate to our relationships often stem from insufficiently paying attention to those around us. — Sharon Salzberg

There's nothing lonelier than empty relationships. At least when you're alone you can be yourself, but when you're in empty relationships you can't even be yourself.
You can be real alone, or you can be a ghost with false friends.
Pulse proximity is not intimacy, and it's worse than no friends at all. — Stefan Molyneux

The causes of familial discord and distance are countless, but the results are often the same: secrecy, blame, sadness, hurt, confusion, and feelings of loss and grief. — Sharon Salzberg

I hope you read this, whoever you are, and imagine that there is a hypothetical person out there who needs your love, has been waiting silently, patiently for it all his life, is flawed and downright ugly at times and yet would have just eaten up any tiny bit of affection you had been willing to give, had you ever stopped your own happy life to notice. And then imagine that this hypothetical person is real, because he probably is ... Wish I'd met you. Wish I wasn't your hypothetical. But you're reading this, which means a few minutes ago, I went into that bathroom and pulled the trigger. You probably heard it. Sorry. You're welcome. Thank you. And please. Please, please, please, please, please, please, please. — Charles Yu

I find it really offensive when people say that the emotional experiences of teenagers are less real or less important than those of adults. I am an adult, and I used to be a teenager, and so I can tell you with some authority that my feelings then were as real as my feelings are now. — John Green

One real danger in love relationships is that most people secretly believe that they must control the love object in order to feel safe in loving and being loved. The cause of this is simple - children are made to feel that they must "give themselves up" if they are to be loved. Thus, for most humans the act of surrender has meant the loss of autonomy or worse - loss of one's own mind.
Surrender is neither control nor morbid dependency and cannot be made contingent upon giving away one's "soul"; nonetheless, the person surrendering opens completely to the moment, and runs the risk of being deeply hurt. Sadly, in our society this is not uncommon and frequently serves to harden or embitter a person toward life in general. Or, on the other had being deeply hurt in the act of surrender can lead to angry and painful "cries for help." When this occurs there is an insatiable and wrathful desire to be cared for as a child is cared for and the horrid fear of loss of independence. — Christopher S. Hyatt

I realize the thing about a guy you've spent your whole life loving from afar is that even though he's real you've really made most of him up. — Kirsten Smith

Only when we start to distinguish reality from fantasy that we can humbly, with eyes wide open, forge loving and sustainable connections with others. — Sharon Salzberg

But remember, for all your adult life you'll be a woman. And how you live your life as a woman, all by yourself before God, is what makes the real you. Nothing on the exterior can touch or change that precious inner sanctuary
your heart, His dwelling place
unless you let it. And God, who loves you very much, has tailor made all your outer life
your circumstances, your relationships
to pressure you into becoming that beautiful woman He's planned for you to be. — Anne Ortlund

If we were all looking for something 'easy come and easy go', then all of our lives would be easy. The problem is that we look for something real, don't we? And it is this longing for what is real, that makes finding the right person to be the most difficult task in the world. You can marry someone and promise the rest of your life to the person, only to find out later that this person makes you feel lonely. If we had no innate longing for true love and for true partnership, then none of us would have any problems! Therefore, the most frightening question to ponder upon, is, 'what if true love does not exist; what if the real stuff isn't real at all?' In such a case, life would be meaningless. I suppose I would rather believe in love relentlessly, than live in this world meaninglessly. — C. JoyBell C.

What brings a real and lasting joy is our relationships with God, and our love for His other children He has put in our lives. It's people; friends and family that fulfil us. All else, fame, popularity, beauty, is so fleeting. — Lindsey Stirling

We're going to be married and hardly touch each other and have to work and work and never have any fun and we're just going to be okay with it because that's how life is and that's how relationships go, but I don't want that. I want our marriage to be ... fun. I love joking around while we fool around. I want to hold hands everywhere we go. I want to make out in the back of a movie theater, steal kisses in coffee shops, have sex over every inch of our apartment or house or wherever we live. And I'm scared marriage will change the fun part of our relationship. The part that keeps us young, keeps us in love, and I'm terrified you'll wake up when you're fifty and realize you're stuck with the decision you made when you were twenty-seven, and we haven't touched in months, we don't go out. I just want to know when that happens ... that you'll still ... you'll still love me. — Cassie Mae

Real love has little to do with gooey emotions and goose bumps; it has everything to do with the choices we make about the way we treat people. Real love is not theory or talk; it is action. It is a decision concerning the way we behave in our relationships with other people. Real love meets needs even when sacrifice is required in order to do so. — Joyce Meyer

Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour when every one has to throw off his mask? Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked? Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight in order to avoid this? Or are you not terrified by it? I have seen men in real life who so long deceived others that at last their true nature could not reveal itself; ... In every man there is something which to a certain degree prevents him from becoming perfectly transparent to himself; and this may be the case in so high a degree, he may be so inexplicably woven into relationships of life which extend far beyond himself that he almost cannot reveal himself. But he who cannot reveal himself cannot love, and he who cannot love is the most unhappy man of all. — Soren Kierkegaard

Love without sacrifice is like theft — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Real love is a decision concerning the way we behave in our relationships with other people. — Joyce Meyer

Whether we fear the existence of boundaries with others or crave more of them, there's no denying that individuation and separation are inevitable parts of loving relationships that become the site of tension. — Sharon Salzberg

It is not love that is to blame. But each of us has resistance to the very love we desire. We also have resistance to the space and independence we need. So we go back and forth, not letting ourselves have one or the other. It all boils down to this: Are you willing to have your relationships be a pathway to fully revealing yourself and your potential? If you answer is Yes, real intimacy can be yours on a daily basis. — Gay Hendricks

If we harm someone else, we're inevitably also hurting ourselves. Some quality of sensitivity and awareness has to shut down for us to be able to objectify someone else, to deny them as a living, feeling being - someone who wants to be happy, just as we do. — Sharon Salzberg

Once upon a teenage mistake, Ash thought he was in forever love, the kind of love that started wars and built the Taj Mahal. He knew at that moment how wrong he'd been. Without his even realizing it, Ash had fallen for Fee, harder and faster than he'd ever fallen for anyone. This was the love he'd thought he'd had before, but there was no real comparison between the two. It was like putting a
matchstick beside a raging inferno - one of them would be completely consumed. — Piper Vaughn

Real Love may run on a lower voltage, but it's also more grounded & sustainable. — Sharon Salzberg

The key is to just focus on the spots where the love is real, because you can just drive yourself crazy focusing on the negativity, focusing on the relationships that are irreparable and just aren't going to work, trying to convince the haters that you are indeed lovable. So much of that is wasted energy. — Amanda Palmer

A particularly difficult line to navigate is the one between fear and love, especially for parents, who want more than anything to protect their children from suffering. — Sharon Salzberg

I'm not the woman who loves the one she's with. I'm also not one who gives up because things aren't perfect. You fight for what you love. You commit to making the relationship better. I don't believe in the perfect match. There's the one you love enough to stay with; there's the one who puts up with your shit. It's not romantic in the standard sense, but to me, it feels better. It feels real. — Ann Aguirre

I knew why love was always described with eternity. A single minute stretched out for lifetimes. — Shannon A. Thompson

I dream of a love in which two people share a passion to search together for some higher truth. Perhaps I should not call it love. Perhaps it's real name is friendship. — Irvin D. Yalom

The point for me is to create relationships based on deeper and more real notions of trust. So that love becomes defined not by sexual exclusivity, but by actual respect, concern, commitment to act with kind intentions, accountability for our actions, and a desire for mutual growth. — Dean Spade

You may be able
to fly to heaven with my love.
But for real, my love is only
a cheap wine.
Seriously,
Only God's love is the precious wine.
And She even
gives it to everyone.
For free! — Subhan Zein

To be deeply loved, means a willingness to cut yourself wide open, exposing your vulnerabilities ... hopes, hurts, fears and flaws. Hiding behind the highlight reel of who you are, is the real you and that person is just as worthy of love. There is nothing more terrifying or fulfilling, than complete love, it's worth the risk ... reach for it. — Jaeda DeWalt

Be open to the possibility that there are other paths available to you in relating to yourself and to another. — Sharon Salzberg

Sharing love is personal to us. It begins within us. Then we seek to extend it outwardly. In relationships, what happens longterm is determined by each person's ability to receive and give love. If our love and all of us is accepted and reciprocated, something beautiful happens (if it isn't, deterioration of the relationship begins). I now believe that the "love of your life" is someone that transcends any other love experienced prior and becomes that person you've had the most love and adoration for. It's such a commonly used phrase. But, I finally understand it. The love of your life is the person with which you share real, unconditional love and all its blessings. — Camille Lucy

Mindfulness won't ensure you'll win an argument with your sister. Mindfulness won't enable you to bypass your feelings of anger or hurt either. But it may help you see the conflict in a new way, one that allows you to break through old patterns. — Sharon Salzberg

We all say we hate being misunderstood and how we desperately want to find people who understand us. But it is not lack of compatible people that keeps us lonely. There is no shortage of people on your journey. The real, secret obstacle that we have against finding authentic, genuine relationships with people is our subconscious fear of growth. If we stick around in the bin of broken toys playing the queen or the king, at least we get to feel some sense of accomplishment at being the most evolved person we know. To find our tribe means finding people we can learn from, people who are better at some things than we are, people who have something to teach. We say we want it, but how many of us fear being a beginner more than loneliness and much more than being in the wrong crowd? There is a strange comfort, a sense of safety, to suffering and loneliness. To be happy, to find our family, we must be willing to let that go. — Vironika Tugaleva

I've never gotten a love letter before. But reading these notes like this, one after the other, it feels like I have. It's like ... it's like there's only ever been Peter. Like everyone else that came before him, they were all to prepare me for this. I think I see the difference now, between loving someone from afar and loving someone up close. When you see them up close, you see the real them, but they also get to see the real you. And Peter does. He sees me, and I see him. — Jenny Han

There is the purity of love, harmonious in every way, but not meant for a lifetime, and then there is the steady love of commitment - no less real but completely different. She had both. — Donna Lynn Hope

What is chemistry in a relationship, Really? Chemistry can be spontaneous combustion that excites, incites, often harms. But not understood. Chemistry can also be that which is studied, intentional, and knows how to be repeated and improved upon. Do you have the right chemistry? — Lucille Anderson

We nurture our sense of connection with the larger whole, noticing that the whole is only as healthy as its smallest part. — Sharon Salzberg

Sanskrit has different words to describe love for a brother or sister, love for a teacher, love for a partner, love for one's friends, love of nature, and so on. English has only one word, which leads to never-ending confusion. — Sharon Salzberg

God shows us what authentic love is in John 3:16, probably the most famous verse in the Bible. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (NKJV). God so loved the world. He loved the whole world; not just the good part of the world, the part that loved him already, or the part that he knew would love him back. We need to expand our hearts, our comfort zones, and our friend zones. He gave his only Son. He was willing to make real sacrifices to build real relationships. Sometimes we need to put aside projects and schedules for the sake of people. Like Jesus, we need to be interruptible. Whoever. He showed unconditional love and acceptance. Love is risky. We might be rejected. We might be crucified by the people we are trying to help. But ultimately, love will prevail. — Judah Smith

Do you love her?"
"Yeah."
"And that's a bad thing?"
"Because relationships end."
"What?"
"If I don't tell Aly how I feel, we'll stay friends. I can handle that. Friendship is real. It lasts, and it's safe."
"Loving someone, being loved ... it's worth the pain of losing them. — Rachel Harris

The environment we create can help heal us or fracture us. This is true not just for buildings and landscapes but also for interactions and relationships. — Sharon Salzberg

When we respond to our pain and suffering with love, understanding, and acceptance - for ourselves, as well as others - over time, we can let go of our anger, even when we've been hurt to the core. But that doesn't mean we ever forget. — Sharon Salzberg

When we develop our ability to love in one realm, we simultaneously nourish our ability in others, as long as we remain open to the flow of insight and compassion. — Sharon Salzberg

(She) got herself a real boyfriend and she was just crazy about him. Not jack rabbit naked and coyote howling crazy, but sugar 'n' butter, soft 'n' sweet crazy. — Jackson Burnett

Some say it should come easy if it's real love but that's just not true. Love is never easy - love hurts sometimes. It causes insecurities and jealousies. Relationships take work - love takes work. And happiness requires forgiving others. I forgive you. — A.D. Justice

When we don't tell those we love about what's really going on or listen carefully to what they have to say, we tend to fill in the blanks with stories. — Sharon Salzberg

I read somewhere that the real reason most people can't get
over an ex is that they don't want to. Deep down they hold on to
the hope that they'll get back together, and that hope prevents
them from moving on. — Serena Grey

Whatever language we use use to describe healthy relationships, when we're in them, we feel nourished by them, in body as well as mind. — Sharon Salzberg

I love that you work out relationships with people as you're filming just to get something real to play on screen. — Lee Pace

Rose leaned against the bathroom door. Here it was - her real life, the truth of who she was, barreling down on her like a bus with bad brakes. Here was the truth - she wasn't the kind of person Jim could fall in love with. She wasn't what she'd made herself out to be - a cheerful, uncomplicated girl, a normal girl with a happy, orderly life, a girl who wore pretty shoes and had nothing more pressing on her mind that whether ER was a rerun this week. The truth was in the exercise tape she didn't have time to unwrap, let alone exercise to; the truth was her hairy legs and ugly underwear. Most of all, the truth was her sister, her gorgeous, messed-up, fantastically unhappy and astoundingly irresponsible sister. — Jennifer Weiner

How we traverse the space between us when conflict arises has a profound effect on the health and longevity of our relationships. — Sharon Salzberg