Romances Quotes & Sayings

All romances ended exactly the same way: a girl realized the surly boy she had hated all along was the only person in the universe who could complete her soul. I did not believe for a minute that my soul could be completed by some surly boy. And I would not wish my curse to harm anyone else. So how could I dare long for love? — Robin Bridges

Since then the romances of chivalry had been superseded by the flowering of literature that we know as the Spanish Golden Age, and by Cervantes's time nobody considered them to be a threat any more. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

There are no new stories. It all depends on how you handle them. In romances the characters are going to fall in love with each other; you know that when you see the syrupy cover. It's how get there that's the fun. — Jude Deveraux

Romance novels can be broken down into two broad categories: historical romances, which utilize a wide variety of historical backdrops, and contemporary romances. The distinction is important because the temporal settings have a strong influence on plot lines and the type of fantasy that is found in the books. — Cathie Linz

A great error is more easily propagated than a great truth, because it is easier to believe, than to reason, and because people prefer the marvels of romances to the simplicity of history. — Charles-Francois Dupuis

I studied painting and sculpting at school and became an actress by mistake ... I've had many lovers and still have romances. I am very spoiled. All my life, I've had too many admirers. — Gina Lollobrigida

There are moments in our lives when we summon the courage to make choices that go against reason, against common sense and the wise counsel of people we trust. But we lean forward nonetheless because, despite all risks and rational argument, we believe that the path we are choosing is the right and best thing to do. We refuse to be bystanders, even if we do not know exactly where our actions will lead.
This is the kind of passionate conviction that sparks romances, wins battles, and drives people to pursue dreams others wouldn't dare. Belief in ourselves and in what is right catapults us over hurdles, and our lives unfold.
"Life is a sum of all your choices," wrote Albert Camus. Large or small, our actions forge our futures and hopefully inspire others along the way. — Howard Schultz

Can it be, thought I, that my sole mission on earth is to destroy the hopes of others? Ever since I began to live and act, fate has somehow associated me with the last act of other people's tragedies, as if without me no one could either die or give way to despair! I have been the inevitable character who comes in at the final act, involuntarily playing the detestable role of the hangman or the traitor. What has been fate's object in all this? Has it destined me to be the author of middle-class tragedies and family romances
or a purveyor of tales for, say, the Reader's Library? Who knows? Are there not many who begin life by aspiring to end it like Alexander the Great, or Lord Byron, and yet remain petty civil servants all their lives? — Mikhail Lermontov

The sad truth is that, within the public sphere, within the collective consciousness of the general populace, most of the history of Indians in North America has been forgotten, and what we are left with is a series of historical artifacts and, more importantly, a series of entertainments. As a series of artifacts, Native history is somewhat akin to a fossil hunt in which we find a skull in Almo, Idaho, a thigh bone on the Montana plains, a tooth near the site of Powhatan's village in Virginia, and then, assuming that all the parts are from the same animal, we guess at the size and shape of the beast. As a series of entertainments, Native history is an imaginative cobbling together of fears and loathings, romances and reverences, facts and fantasies into a cycle of creative performances, in Technicolor and 3-D, with accompanying soft drinks, candy, and popcorn.
In the end, who really needs the whole of Native history when we can watch the movie? — Thomas King

Women are my drugs and alcohol. When I'm involved with one woman, I'm involved with one woman. Period. But between romances, I am carnivorous. — Burt Reynolds

How many times have you said, 'This is it. I've finally found my one true love'? And how many times has the reality turned out differently? Paperback romances and fairy tales promote an ideal of a first and only love, but few of us can claim to have had such uncomplicated good fortune. For most people, the process of finding the perfect partner is one trial and error: breakups, makeups, missed opportunities and misunderstandings. Human love is a fragile creation, and sometimes the smallest thing - the wrong choice of words or a single clumsy gesture - can make love shatter, stall or fade away. — Haruki Murakami

The Bible alone gives a true and faithful account of man. It does not flatter him as novels and romances do; it does not conceal his faults and exaggerate his goodness, it paints him just as he is. — J.C. Ryle

I always say 'thriller;' if they see you're a woman - and you're a blond woman - people assume you're writing about cats and romances where somebody has died. — Karin Slaughter

Variety is definitely the spice of life but I love writing office romances (I was a secretary before I became a writer), because it's every girl's dream to meet that gorgeous hunky boss who sweeps her off her feet and takes her out of her dull routine. — Helen Brooks

Patrick West." Nick spoke so quietly the words were hardly more than a soft exhalation. "Student. Swimmer. Fan of lurid supernatural romances, €linore, and BadMadRad. Casual gamer. Admirer of Jaguar, fictional warrior princesses, and soprano witch queens. Lover of historical buildings. Idealist who wants to build cities where people can live well. Owner of strong opinions he never hesitates to defend, no matter how obviously wrong. Quick to laugh. Spontaneous and unselfconscious, except when he thinks too much, or tries too hard. Talks too much, with hardly any filter between the brain and the mouth. Adaptable. Outgoing. Unreserved. Loud. Talented. Whole-hearted. Foolhardy. Stronger than he thinks. Wiser than he seems. — Alex Gabriel

That night I lay in bed, thinking about how summer romances really do happen so fast, and then they're over so fast.
But the next morning, when I went to the deck to eat my toast, I found an empty water bottle on the steps that led down to the beach. Poland Spring, the kind Cam was always drinking. There was a piece of paper inside, a note. A message in a bottle. The ink was a little smeared, but I could still read what it said. It said, IOU one skinny-dip. — Jenny Han

It rekindles the great Hollywood romances. — Richard Corliss

Romances I ne'er read like those I have seen. — Lord Byron

Of all the Grail romances the most famous, and the most artistically significant, is Parzival, composed sometime between 1195 and 1216. — Michael Baigent

I've been recording audiobooks for more than 30 years. I've recorded over 500 titles on all sort of things. I'm a sort of genre-free recording artist - classics and romances, I just finished a sci-fi book, self help ... just all kinds of things. — Barbara Rosenblat

Summer romances cometo an end. That was part of the deal. They are built like certain plants or insects, not able to survive more than one season. I thought we would be different. We were, I guess, but not in the way I thought. I truly believed that we would never let each other go. The young are so dumb. — Harlan Coben

First impressions of mediaeval life are usually coloured by the courtly romances of Malory and his later refiners. Chaucer brings us down to reality, but his people belong to a prosperous middle-class world, on holiday and in holiday mood. Piers Plowman stands alone as a revelation of the ignorance and misery of the lower classes, whose multiplied grievances came to a head in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. — William Langland

Romances paint at full length people's wooing. But only give a bust of marriages. — Lord Byron

Romances and marriages are usually over long before they are over. — Mimi Sheraton

About Anna Faktorovich's "Romances of George Sand": "What a read! Not lacking in action and very imaginative. — Belinda Jack

The silence. End of all poetry, all romances. Earlier, frightened, you began to have some intimation of it: so many pages had been turned, the book was so heavy in one hand, so light in the other, thinning toward the end. Still, you consoled yourself. You were not quite at the end of the story, at that terrible flyleaf, blank like a shuttered window: there were still a few pages under your thumb, still to be sought and treasured. — Sofia Samatar

Dad's romances could last anywhere between a platypus egg incubation (19-21 days) and a squirrel pregnancy (24-45 days). — Marisha Pessl

Summer romances begin for all kinds of reasons, but when all is said and done, they have one thing in common. They're shooting stars, a spectacular moment of light in the heavens, fleeting glimpse of eternity, and in a flash they're gone — Red

What audiences end up with word-wise is a hackneyed, completely derivative copy of old Hollywood romances, a movie that reeks of phoniness and lacks even minimal originality. — Kenneth Turan

Other than along certain emotional tangents there was little in the book that felt as if it had actually been lived. It was a fiction produced by someone who knew only fictions, The Tempest as written by isolate Miranda, raised on the romances in her father's library. — Michael Chabon

The big things in the average person's life are the romances that they have - and then the destruction and loss of them. Parents, siblings, children, the death of parents, family tension ... these are monumental things. They struck me as being interesting to write about. I didn't have a very exotic life, but all this stuff happened to me. — Loudon Wainwright III

The rest of 2012's big winners are romances, all but one (The Lucky One, by Nicholas Sparks) of the sexed-up genre now known as mommy-porn. — Stephen King

When i first saw him i thought he was as beautiful as a knight from the romances, like a troubadour, like a poet. I thought i could be like a lady in a tower and he could sing beneath my window and
persuade me to love him. But although he has the looks of a
poet he doesn't have the wit. I can never get more than two
words out of him, and i begin to feel that i demean myself in trying to please him. — Philippa Gregory

I sold my first short story while I was home on maternity leave, then began working on novels. Since I was reading and enjoying romance novels at the time, the first two unpublished manuscripts I wrote were both romances. I sold my third novel, 'Call After Midnight,' to Harlequin Intrigue after submitting it unagented. — Tess Gerritsen

Oh, it was easy to see why people had whirlwind shipboard romances, for it was a temporary journey into fantasy, where dreams could come true
if only for the duration of the cruise. — Patricia Hagan

Though films become more daring sexually, they are probably less sexy than they ever were. There haven't been any convincing love scenes or romances in the movies in a while. (Nobody even seems to neck in theaters any more.) ... when the mechanics and sadism quotients go up, the movie love interest goes dead, and the film just lies there, giving a certain amount of offense. — Renata Adler

He thought of the boys and girls who looked for sweethearts at Mountain View Cemetery, and chorus girls who met their beaux behind scrim, and office romances that flourished in the buildings on Market Street, and he felt like there were little lights in alcoves here and there across the city, in cozy dens, in doorways during rainstorms, or even a chilly balcony on the Ferry building. Everywhere, little pairs of glowing lights. When you walked a city, wherever you looked, someone had probably fallen in love. — Glen David Gold

In your twenties, you expect to accumulate a graveyard's worth of failed romances. But what you don't count on is having to bury so many treasured friendships alongside them. — Ryan O'Connell

Michael looked embarrassed. "No, I don't really ... I mean in real life, I don't do that. I read BDSM once in a while, but honestly, I prefer the sweeter romances."
"Sure. I believe you. Bondage Ben."
"Stop it." Michael laughed.
"Cracky McCracken." James flicked an invisible whip.
"I am not! I'm more like Nick Normal."
"Nipple Clamp Ned."
"Vince Vanilla."
James gave him a dubious look and snorted. "I doubt that very much."
Michael shrugged with an evil little smile. "Well, maybe not entirely vanilla. — Eli Easton

Whales are silly once every two years. The young are called short-heads or baby blimps. Many whale romances begin in Baffin's bay and end in Procter and Gamble's factory, Staten Island. — Will Cuppy

The importance of the romantic element does not rest upon conjecture. Pleasing testimonies abound. Hannah More traced her earliest impressions of virtue to works of fiction; and Adam Clarke gives a list of tales that won his boyish admiration. Books of entertainment led him to believe in a spiritual world; and he felt sure of having been a coward, but for romances. He declared that he had learned more of his duty to God, his neighbor and himself from Robinson Crusoe than from all the books, except the Bible, that were known to his youth. — Robert Aris Willmott

I have always made a point in my romances of basing my so-called inventions upon a groundwork of actual fact, and of using in their construction methods and materials which are not entirely without the pale of contemporary engineering skill and knowledge. — Jules Verne

Charantia. Bitter herbs. Bitter. — Jacqueline Miranda

Read history, works of truth, not novels and romances — Robert E.Lee

To the composition of novels and romances, nothing is necessary but paper, pens, and ink, with the manual capacity of using them. — Henry Fielding

Teenagers are asking, 'Who am I?' and 'How do I fit in?' in every aspect of their lives, and the best YA romances appreciate that there is more to a teen's life than finding love. — Sarah MacLean

[...] all expressions of creativity have a structure at work within them, most particularly those who adhere to a classical form. All romances are the same in the same way that all choreographed ballets are the same. Each ballet is a written sequence of the same steps, but each performance is remarquably different [...] — Sarah Wendell

I imagine I should have told it to you before? I love you, Sejal.I wish for you to become my wife.Recently I've also opened a shop in North Dakota and thinking that, just maybe, you love me too. — Chayada Welljaipet

If a man, sitting all alone, cannot dream strange things, and make them look like truth, he need never try to write romances. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

There had been romances in my schooldays
but all my friends had had those; we were forever sending each other Valentines, writing sonnets on the prefect's eyes ... This wasn't like that. It was a thing of the heart and the head and the body. A real, true thing, grown-up. — Sarah Waters

My mother wrote a couple of romances when I was a kid, and I always saw books in our bookshelf with 'Schroeder' on the spine. — Karl Schroeder

The resulting scrambling to get the next big shiver and shake novel produced some really terrible books. As a further result, the wave had begun to withdraw by the mid 70s, and more traditional bestsellers began to re-appear: stories of sex, big business, sex, spies, gay sex, doctors in trouble, kinky sex, historical romances, sexy celebrities, war stories, and sex. — Stephen King

Speaking of names and all-time favorite romances, Bailey told me you write under a pen name. I've been really curious about that."
Fern groaned loudly. She shook her fist toward Bailey's house. "Curse your big mouth, Bailey Sheen" She looked at Ambrose with trepidation. "You are going to think I'm some stalker chick. That I'm totally obsessed. But you have to remember that I came up with this alter ego when I was sixteen and I was a bit obsessed. Okay, I'm still a bit obsessed."
"With what?" Ambrose was confused.
"With you," Fern's response was muffled as she buried her forehead in his chest, but Ambrose still heard her. He laughed and forced her chin up so he could see her face. "I still don't understand what that has to do with your pen name."
Fern sighed. "It's Amber Rose."
"Ambrose?"
"Amber Rose," Fern corrected.
"Amber Rose?" Ambrose sputtered.
"Yes," Fern said in a very, very small voice. And Ambrose laughed for a very, very long time. — Amy Harmon

Romance novels are my favorite books to read. I write young adult romances, and am so happy to be promoting this wonderful genre. — Simone Elkeles

They ask questions like 'do you believe in aliens' and those types of things. They were really interested in aliens, and that was really something that the Japanese have an interest in, and they are also very big fans of romances. — Shiri Appleby

Romance novels are all about desire and happily-ever-after, but happily-ever-after doesn't come from desire - at least not the kind portrayed in pulp romances. Real love is not to desire a person but to desire their happiness - sometimes even at the expense of our own happiness. Real love is to expand our own capacity for tolerance and caring, to actively seek another's well-being. All else is simply a charade of self-interest. — Richard Paul Evans

Well, OK then." He narrowed his eyes. "How about you? Do you have any ... romances I should know about?"
"Nope. Not one."
"Well, good. Excellent. There'll be plenty of time for boys when you leave college and become a nun."
She smiled. "I'm glad you have such ambitious dreams for me. — Derek Landy

And so he would now study perfumes, and the secrets of their manufacture, distilling heavily-scented oils, and burning odorous gums from the East. He saw that there was no mood of the mind that had not its counterpart in the sensuous life, and set himself to discover their true relations, wondering what there was in frankincense that made one mystical, and in ambergris that stirred one's passions, and in violets that woke the memory of dead romances, and in musk that troubled the brain, and in champak that stained the imagination;
and seeking often to elaborate a real psychology of perfumes, and to estimate the several influences of sweet-smelling roots, and scented pollen-laden flower, of aromatic balms, and of dark and fragrant woods, of spikenard that sickens, of hovenia that makes men mad, and of aloes that are said to be able to expel melancholy from the soul. — Oscar Wilde

Mary Jo Putney is a gifted writer with an intuitive understanding of what makes romances work. I loved Silk and Shadows, couldn't put it down, and don't think readers will, either. — Jayne Ann Krentz

Feathers, and a shield and a lance and a sword. His armor and his weapons were all, I am almost sure, of quite different periods. The shield was thirteenth century, while the sword was of the pattern used in the Peninsular War. The cuirass was of the time of Charles I., and the helmet dated from the Second Crusade. The arms on the shield were very grand - three red running lions on a blue ground. The tents were of the latest brand approved of by our modern War Office, and the whole appearance of camp, army, and leader might have been a shock to some. But Robert was dumb with admiration, and it all seemed to him perfectly correct, because he knew no more of heraldry or archaeology than the gifted artists who usually drew the pictures for the historical romances. The scene was indeed "exactly like a picture." He admired — E. Nesbit

Look, I can appreciate this. I was young too, I felt just like you. Hated authority, hated all my bosses, thought they were full of shit. Look, it's like they say, if you're not a rebel by the age of 20, you got no heart, but if you haven't turned establishment by 30, you've got no brains. Because there are no story-book romances, no fairy-tale endings. So before you run out and change the world, ask yourself, What do you really want? — George Huang

Friendship is a sacred thing and I do not extend the word lightly. I've had long-term romances in my life but few genuine friendships. I am exceedingly picky about who I let in my inner circle and because of that I have a few friends and many acquaintances. — Donna Lynn Hope

My romance writing began with an avid romance-reading mother who devoured so many romances each week that I decide to save library trips by supplementing the supply myself. — Joyce Dingwell

And you don't even need to say anything. I'm screwed up. I don't know how any of this works anymore than you do. But I do believe you're worth every second it would take to figure it out, Mason said, a smile taking over his features. — Holly Hood

In American Romances, her new book of essays, Rebecca Brown has a voice that is full of pop references, family stories, and the fruits of a lifetime of
in her perfect phrase - extreme reading. The voice is a hoot, and it is dead serious. This is writing with exquisite control, fully up to the task Brown takes on of playing a fierce game of beach ball with deep problems of American (and personal) history and identity. — Susan Stinson

Diane Gonclaves DeLuna and her mother, Mary for whom my heroine is named for. Diane and I met on Facebook, but we soon learned we have one thing (besides romance novels) in common. Her mother suffers from Alzheimer's and min suffered from Dementia. Both of us wish we only had the love of romances in common. Jane — Aileen Fish

The idea that 'Life' contains situations more interesting and more romantic than all the romances ever written. — Marcel Proust

There are certain romances that belong in certain cities, in a certain atmosphere, in a certain time. — Sammy Davis Jr.

Work place romances always seem to get very confused and peculiar, in my experience. — Sean Pertwee

Maybe it was the novels I read - the racier Mills & Boon romances of late, Danielle Steel instructing me on international sex and sin. — Manil Suri

I think romance is maligned in large part because at first glance, love seems so pedestrian. It's all around us. It's in books and songs and movies and on billboards, so how could it really hold literary value? But what people tend to forget is that the search for love - for the simple idea that there is someone out there who will see us for who we are and accept us isn't trite. It's a huge part of our lives. And it's an enormous part of our dreams.
There are so many fabulous romances out there - there's something for everyone. I really believe that. And I believe that most of the people who look down their noses at the genre haven't ever read a romance novel. I think that if they did, they'd be really surprised by how good great romance can be. — Sarah MacLean

I write nothing but contemporary romances. — Chuck Palahniuk

People aren't defined by their relationship. The whole point is being true to yourself and not losing yourself in relationships, whether romances or friendships. — Nina Dobrev

Rip her dress off!" Bob shouted. Bob the Skull takes paperback romances very seriously. The next page turned so quickly that he tore the paper a little. Bob is even harder on books than I am.
"That's what I'm talking about!" Bob hollered, as more pages turned. — Jim Butcher

I am courteous enough to assume that everyone in this so aesthetically voluptuous age, so potent and aroused that conception occurs as easily as with the partridge which, Aristotle says, needs only to hear the voice of the cock or its flight overhead - to assume that at the mere sound of the word 'concealment' everyone can easily shake a dozen romances and comedies from his sleeve. — Soren Kierkegaard

Sun adores the body
Moon romances your soul ...
— Shonali Dey

I was still an avid reader of Mills & Boon romances - on publication day, I used to rush out of work to get to the local book store to grab my favourites before they all disappeared. — Penny Jordan

Some might call it a tawdry romance, or mommy porn. Samantha, however, found romances very educational. For example, she knew exactly what to do if facing an angry Saxon - swoon in his arms. See? Useful stuff. — Eve Langlais

Clearly a woman of good taste, she was reading a historical romance. I loved historical romances. And contemporary romances. And paranormal romances. And young adult romances. Pretty much anything in front of the word romance would do it for me. — Darynda Jones

How much the fiction of Sir Walter Scott owes to Froissart, and to Philip de Comines after Froissart, those only can understand who have read both the old chronicles and the modern romances. It was one of the congenial labors of — William Cleaver Wilkinson

As soon as histories are properly told there is no more need of romances. — Walt Whitman

In 1927 she became, and would forevermore remain, the "It Girl." "It" was first a two-part article and then a novel by a flame-haired English novelist named Elinor Glyn, who was known for writing juicy romances in which the main characters did a lot of undulating ("she undulated round and all over him, twined about him like a serpent") and for being the mistress for some years of Lord Curzon, former viceroy of India. "It," as Glyn explained, "is that quality possessed by some few persons which draws all others with its magnetic life force. With it you win all men if you are a woman - and all women if you are a man. — Bill Bryson

I cannot here avoid giving my most decided sufferage in favour of the moral qualities of maniacs. I have no where met, excepting in romances, with fonder husbands, more affectionate parents, more impassioned ... than in the lunatic asylum, during their intervals of calmness and reason. — Philippe Pinel

YA heroines can have romances that are subplots: can have goals other than getting/keeping a man: can put their lovers second. JUST LIKE YAheroes DO! — Celine Kiernan

I will always respect the beliefs of fellow Christians who aren't comfortable reading or writing explicit love scenes, but I believe romances are beautiful and spiritual books that celebrate the best of what love has to offer and mirror the love God has for his children. — Teresa Medeiros

Lies, fables and romances must needs be probable, but not the truth and foundation of our faith. — Johann Georg Hamann

You've got to understand one of the tricks of the modern mind, a tendency that most people obey without noticing it. In the village or suburb outside there's an inn with the sign of St. George and the Dragon. Now suppose I went about telling everybody that this was only a corruption of King George and the Dragoon. Scores of people would believe it, without any inquiry, from a vague feeling that it's probable because it's prosaic. It turns something romantic and legendary into something recent and ordinary. And that somehow makes it sound rational, though it is unsupported by reason. Of course some people would have the sense to remember having seen St. George in old Italian pictures and French romances, but a good many wouldn't think about it at all. They would just swallow the skepticism because it was skepticism. Modern intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything without authority. That's exactly what has happened here. — G.K. Chesterton

I don't get the romances. I did try - a film called 'Roseanna's Grave' in the 1990s. I liked it. But the audience didn't come. — Jean Reno

My ears become my conduit to the world. In the darkness I listen - to thrillers, to detective novels, to romances; to family sagas, potboilers and historical novels; to ghost stories and classic fiction and chick lit; to bonkbusters and history books. I listen to good books and bad books, great books and terrible books; I do not discriminate. Steadily, hour after hour, in the darkness I consume them all. — Anna Lyndsey

What qualities are there for which a man gets so speedy a return of applause, as those of bodily superiority, activity, and valour? Time out of mind strength and courage have been the theme of bards and romances; and from the story of Troy down to to-day, poetry has always chosen a soldier for a hero. I wonder is it because men are cowards in heart that they admire bravery so much, and place military valour so far beyond every other quality for reward and worship? — William Makepeace Thackeray

Now as the Paradisiacal pleasures of the Mahometans consist in playing upon the flute and lying with Houris, be mine to read eternal new romances of Marivaux and Crebillon. — Thomas Gray

I have noticed a curious bifurcation in outcome in the way romances are written by women et written by men - Love Story, The Bridges of Madison County, every James Bond tale ever penned, even the film named above - end with the woman either lost or dead. And the man free to love, or at least to have sex, again. Romances (in the modern genre sense) written by women end with the couple alive, together, and in a committed and at least potentially fertile relationship, ready to turn to the work of their world. In other words, men's romances are about love and death; women's romances are about love and life. — Lois McMaster Bujold

When romances do really teach anything, or produce any effective operation, it is usually through a far more subtle process than the ostensible one. The author has considered it hardly worth his while, therefore, relentlessly to impale the story with its moral as with an iron rod-or, rather, as by sticking a pin through a butterfly-thus at once depriving it of life, and causing it to stiffen in an ungainly and unnatural attitude. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

We are not long-term beings. Not heroes of romances in many volumes. For one gesture, for one word alone, we shall make the effort. We openly admit: our creations will be temporary. We shall have this as our aim: a gesture. — Jonathan Safran Foer

For a moment she was convinced she was still dreaming. That she'd fallen asleep while reading one of JR Ward's Brotherhood of The Black Dagger romances and had inserted herself into a dream based on the book. Any moment now he was going to start growling Mine Mine Mine and let loose with some spicy bonding scent. Or flash a massive set of fangs. — Trish McCallan

The most delightful and choicest pleasure is that which is hinted at, but never told. — Chretien De Troyes

Hardy classified A Pair of Blue Eyes among 'Romances and Fantasies'. A favourite of Tennyson, its melancholy treatment of youth, love and death is expressive of late nineteenth-century susceptibilities. Not unnaturally in an early novel, Hardy draws freely on his own life. — Geoffrey Harvey

It is strange how the romances of the teenage years retain a poignancy all through life - how a girl who turns you down when you're 16 retains an aura in your memory even long after you, and she, have ceased to be who you were then. I attended my high school reunion a couple of weeks ago and discovered, in the souvenir booklet assembled by the reunion committee, that one of the girls in my class had a crush on me all those years ago. I would have given a great deal to have had that information at the time. — Roger Ebert

The freeing of an individual, as he grows up, from the authority of his parents is one of the most necessary though one of the most painful results brought about by the course of his development. It is quite essential that that liberation should occur and it may be presumed that it has been to some extent achieved by everyone who has reached a normal state. Indeed, the whole progress of society rests upon the opposition between successive generations. On the other hand, there is a class of neurotics whose condition is recognizably determined by their having failed in this task. — Sigmund Freud

But he didn't seem to need her to finish her sentence as he said, I know. When you kiss me, it's like that for me, too. — Bella Andre