Romantic Novel Quotes & Sayings

Just as we all like love tales because there is an instinct of sex, we all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of the ancient instinct of astonishment. This is proved by the fact that when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales -- because they find them romantic. In fact, a baby is about the only person, I should think, to whom a modern realistic novel could be read without boring him. — G.K. Chesterton

Hey, Mom, I'm a married woman now. I want to have ten babies and live here forever and ever.
How weird is that? It's almost ROMANTIC.
And then I realized that my sister was trying to LIVE a romance novel.
Man, that takes courage and imagination. Well, it also took some degree of mental illness, too, but I was suddenly happy for her.
And a little scared. — Sherman Alexie

Nor is it again that the novel has killed the play, as some critics would persuade us - the romantic movement of France shows us that. The work of Balzac and of Hugo grew up side by side together; nay, more, were complementary to each other, though neither of them saw it. While all other forms of poetry may flourish in an ignoble age, the splendid individualism of the lyrist, fed by its own passion, and lit by its own power, may pass as a pillar of fire as well across the desert as across places that are pleasant. It is none the less glorious though no man follow it - nay, by the greater sublimity of its loneliness it may be quickened into loftier utterance and intensified into clearer song. — Oscar Wilde

A black boy brought Wilson's gin and he sipped it very slowly because he had nothing else to do except to return to his hot and squalid room and read a novel - or a poem. Wilson liked poetry, but he absorbed it secretly, like a drug. The Golden Treasury accompanied him wherever he went, but it was taken at night in small doses - a finger of Longfellow, Macaulay, Mangan: 'Go on to tell how, with genius wasted, Betrayed in friendship, befooled in love ... ' His taste was romantic. For public exhibition he has his Wallace. He wanted passionately to be indistinguishable on the surface from other men: he wore his moustache like a club tie - it was his highest common factor, but his eyes betrayed him - brown dog's eyes, a setter's eyes, pointing mournfully towards Bond Street. — Graham Greene

They wanted so desperately to love each other more, to remove their clothes and submit their naked bodies to each other, but it was almost as if they were cursed since the first day that they met, and it was pure torture knowing that they could only get so close, but was unable to go the height that the both of them wanted so intimately to climb. — Keira D. Skye

I'm going to tell you something that no magazine or novel or television show will ever let on. Love wears you down. We think of it as hearts and flowers and happily ever after but in real life, the things you have to do in the name of love kill you ... You end up doing a thousand things in a day in the name of love that you wouldn't ask a dog to do.
Sex is the most powerful weapon in your arsenal
innocence is attractive in children, but it makes brittle, disappointed adults.
Someone liking you is just the beginning; it always starts nicely but before you know it it's like Persephone being dragged into the Underworld.
Romantic love is an illusion Hughie,. It can be manupulated, twisted, piled up like a bunch of fun-house mirrors. The very nature of it is deceptive. It promises closeness but the only thing is ever really reveals is the dreams and fears of the person with the obsessions. That's why it's so easy to control — Kathleen Tessaro

Friendly fire was never friendly, and it was coming. Operation Stand-and-Watch was over. Did that mean Operation Bust-His-Balls was on deck? — Cristin Harber

He gently takes the lead, and I trail behind him up the narrow spiral stairway at the back of the kitchen. His hand is warm, and holding it feels like the easiest thing in the world. Too easy. I'm going to get myself in trouble. — Lisa Daily

They did it quite a lot after that first encounter" ... when Jill remembers first meeting the dashing Baron. — Lisa McKnight

Are you a terrorist? Or just an idiot? — Wataru Watari

I concede that a bad romantic novel is embarrassing and indefensible. So is a bad so-called realistic novel. (And it is usually pretentious into the bargain which is insufferable.) But a good romantic novel is a heart-warming thing which strikes a responsive chord in those who are happy and offers a certain lifting of the spirits to those who are not. — Mary Burchell

I can't bring myself to trust you. But even if you were to betray me, and even if you were to become my enemy ... would it be okay for me to love? Could you ... let me love you? — Ryohgo Narita

WWI is a romantic war, in all senses of the word. An entire generation of men and women left the comforts of Edwardian life to travel bravely, and sometimes even jauntily, to almost certain death. At the very least, any story or novel about WWI is about innocence shattered in the face of experience. — Anita Shreve

It's like I'm suddenly a hormonally charged teenager or living in a bad romance novel: I suddenly can't stop myself from noticing every man around me. Which means that Darcy, Samantha, and Michael are probably right. Plus, there was that disturbing dream about Voldemort this morning. I need to lose my gay-husband virginity before I lose my mind entirely. I need to find someone to sleep with me. And the fact that I don't have the faintest idea how to make that happen is just further proof that it needs to.
- SINGLE-MINDED — Lisa Daily

In the West, audiences think I am a stereotyped action star, or that I always play hitmen or killers. But in Hong Kong, I did a lot of comedy, many dramatic films, and most of all, romantic roles, lots of love stories. I was like a romance novel hero. — Chow Yun-Fat

So he was queer, E.M. Forster. It wasn't his middle name (that would be 'Morgan'), but it was his orientation, his romping pleasure, his half-secret, his romantic passion. In the long-suppressed novel Maurice the title character blurts out his truth, 'I'm an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort.' It must have felt that way when Forster came of sexual age in the last years of the 19th century: seriously risky and dangerously blurt-able. The public cry had caught Wilde, exposed and arrested him, broken him in prison. He was one face of anxiety to Forster; his mother was another. As long as she lived (and they lived together until she died, when he was 66), he couldn't let her know. — Michael Levenson

People snare when I tell them that I'm an emotional prostitute. But after my rebuttal, they begin to realize that they are one too. Like me, they have pimped their emotions for the affections of another. Like me, they've gone through life tormented by the idea of living a happily ever after, not realizing that the ever after isn't so happy. — Beatrice McClearn

Balzac once
terminated a long conversation about politics and the fate of the world by saying: "And now let us get
back to serious matters," meaning that he wanted to talk about his novels. The incontestable importance
of the world of the novel, our insistence, in fact, on taking seriously the innumerable myths with which
we have been provided for the last two centuries by the genius of writers, is not fully explained by the
desire to escape. Romantic activities undoubtedly imply a rejection of reality. But this rejection is not a
mere escapist flight, and might be interpreted as the retreat of the soul which, according to Hegel, creates
for itself, in its disappointment, a fictitious world in which ethics reigns alone. The edifying novel,
however, is far from being great literature; and the best of all romantic novels, Paul et Virginie, a really
heartbreaking book, makes no concessions to consolation. — Albert Camus

Romantic fiction, in the broader sense, can be any novel that has a love story somewhere in it. It can be a mystery or a historical novel, as long as it has this very strong romantic thread running through it. — Susanna Kearsley

But life is beautiful, Sariel!' Gabriel said, trying to convince him. 'Watch the sunrise sometime lying in the scented flowers of the field, or the shooting stars at the end of summer! Read a couple of really exciting books or lose yourself in the unselfconscious smiles of children. Have a swim in a clear mountain lake or take a run among trees clothed in autumn colours. If you can see the good in Earth, your own existence will become the richer for it!'
'That all sounds very well and good, but you haven't convinced me,' the deep-voiced angel murmured and Ariel laughed.
'My friend, Gabriel was very gently trying to suggest that you should fall in love and that will better dispose you to the world! — A.O. Esther

From Flood, Flash, and Pheromones
coming soon:
In the torrential downpour with water swirling that threatened to pull her down, she didn't see the voice's owner. The hurricane had blessed the entire city with a surprise drenching. All weather reports had predicted it to pass over with sporadic rainfall but that didn't happen. The storm settled over Houston as if it had no intention to move on. Cassie flailed in panic as the roof of her car disappeared under the water twenty feet beyond. She prayed once more that the container in it was watertight. And that she'd see her car again. Then she concentrated on living. Where had the voice come from? — Shelley K. Wall

In my first novel the heroine didn't get her man, in my second the heroine was 64 years old, my third was a romantic suspense set behind the Iron Curtain, my fourth had no wedding bells, not even in the far distance. — Maynah Lewis

The God Factor Saga is a complex blockbuster in genre of This Present Darkness meets Anne of Green Gables. This saga is a romantic, suspenseful, apocalyptic, and inspirational novel tucked into the stories of children who grow up to be men and women with Divine purpose. — J. Nell Brown

P.O. Box Love is a wonderfully engrossing and romantic novel that takes the reader from Milan to New York and back again through the letters Federico and Emma mail to each other. Paola Calvetti's book will captivate your mind and steal your heart."

Isabella Rossellini — Paola Calvetti

You know," Kavita begins, "I think I can pick out my own furniture. I am an artist after all. I do have some taste."
"No you don't." Nick plainly states. "No man has taste. Besides, I didn't pick it out, she did. Wives are good for things like that. — Carroll Bryant

The last romantic novel I think I read was 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles.' — Bartlett Sher

The kiss wove between gentle and frenzied, liquid and greedy, silken and primal, and he sucked every second of bliss he could from the forbidden pleasure. — Jami Gold

This wasn't a romantic getaway at the Ritz, unless running for your lives counted as foreplay.
Armentrout, Jennifer L. (2013-08-27). Origin (A Lux Novel) (Kindle Location 3126). Entangled Publishing, LLC. Kindle Edition. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Children, Hadley thinks to herself, children are more civilised than this gang on the sauce. — Naomi Wood

I had read a Tale of Two Cities and found it up to my standards as a romantic novel. She opened the first page and I heard poetry for the first time in my life ... her voice slid in and curved down trough and over the words. She was nearly singing. — Maya Angelou

I don't know who he was," Kavita flat-out states, "but whoever he was he sure did a number on you, didn't he?"
Mary leans forward to ensure he would see her deviant stare. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe I did a number on him?"
Kavita leans in closer as well, and with that same deviant expression, "Yes. I have. — Carroll Bryant

All Jane Austen novels have a common storyline: an attractive and virtuous young woman surmounts difficulties to achieve marriage to the man of her choice. This is the age-long convention of the romantic novel, but with Jane Austen, what we have is Mills & Boon written by a genius. — P.D. James

Goodbyes are not forever. They are always partnered with see you again. — Mathilda Maldita

I think I have the courage to doubt everything; I think I have the courage to fight everything. But I do not have the courage to know anything, nor to possess, to own anything. Most people complain that the world is so prosaic, that life isn't like a romantic novel where opportunities are always so favorable. What I complain of is that life is not like a novel where there are hard-hearted fathers, and goblins and trolls to fight with, enchanted princesses to free. What are all such enemies taken together compared to the pallid, bloodless, glutinous nocturnal shapes with which I fight and to wich I myself give life and being. — Soren Kierkegaard

Have you ever been in a situation where you had to choose between your loved ones, knowing that whatever you decided, you would have to lie to one of them?'
'Yes. More than once.' Elijah's words sounded far too cold in the sudden silence. His finely chiselled face tensed up and his eyes grew cold. 'And before you ask, I chose you every time. — A.O. Esther

Lily looks back down at the necklace in her hand that Kavita had given her. "It must have cost a fortune."
"It did." He confirms. "Though not nearly as much as you're worth."
Lily looks up at him. "Don't say that. You hurt me everytime you speak. — Carroll Bryant

I linger too long in his embrace; the night is so warm, the rocking of the boat so lulling, I have to stop myself from swaying to the music. Daniel smells really good - a masculine cocktail of saltwater, citrus, and probably just full-on testosterone. — Lisa Daily

Nobody's perfect. They are weak, with ugly hearts, and they quickly turn to jealousy. They try to knock others down. It's so odd . . . In the world we live in, the greater a person is, the more difficult his or her life becomes. — Wataru Watari

Let me in, Emily, and I swear to you that you'll never regret it.
Ethan Sterling in Private Emotions — Elize Amornette

But seriously Holden, what is the island called now?"

"Sentosa," Holden said romantically and with a flourish of his unoccupied left hand.

"Sentosa. Sounds romantic all right. So this is the progress you're talking about? — Robert Yeo

She was quit a handsome man, my sister. — Wataru Watari

I thought you were more like GI Joe, but now that I know about the cape, you sound more like Superman." Mia Kensington to Colby Winters — Cristin Harber

My experience of life is that it is not divided up into genres; it's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky. — Alan Moore

A romantic novel is an adult fairy story, repeating the recurring symbols and images which can explain life to a woman and satisfy a powerful need within her. The need to love and be loved is vital to all human beings, but especially to women. — Charlotte Lamb

And even though they had not had sex yet, he was a great lover, replacing sex with the science of bravery and inner strength. Meredith had always wanted a man with this kind of depth. — Keira D. Skye

That pissed me the hell off. I took in a deep breath and blurted out everything without thinking twice. "Fuck you! You want to know who I am, Marcus. Well here it goes! I am temperamental, over-sensitive, and outspoken. I'm honest! I cry at stupid love movies, and I'm a sucker for a romantic novel. I don't allow people to walk all over me, I have trust issues, and I have insecurities. I've slept with four men in my entire life! And the one thing I don't do is take shit from men who try to act like they're better than me as if they don't have any hidden skeletons! I'm not keeping shit hidden, how 'bout you? You can fuck off. I'll find my own way home. Have a nice fucking life!" - Mia — E.L. Montes

In April war was declared with Germany. Wilson and his cabinet - a cabinet that in its lack of distinction was strangely reminiscent of the twelve apostles - let loose the carefully starved dogs of war, and the press began to whoop hysterically against the sinister morals, sinister philosophy, and sinister music produced by the Teutonic temperament. Those who fancied themselves particularly broad-minded made the exquisite distinction that it was only the German Government which aroused them to hysteria; the rest were worked up to a condition of retching indecency. Any song which contained the word "mother" and the word "kaiser" was assured of a tremendous success. At last every one had something to talk about - and almost every one fully enjoyed it, as though they had been cast for parts in a sombre and romantic play. — F Scott Fitzgerald

I have always lusted after a sepia-toned library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a sliding ladder. I fantasie about Tennessee Williams' types of evenings involving rum on the porch. I long for balmy slightly sleepless nights with nothing but the whoosh of a wooden ceiling fan to keep me company, and the joy of finding the cool spot on the bed. I would while away my days jotting down my thoughts in a battered leather-bound notebook, which would have been given to me by some former lover. My scribbling would form the basis of a best-selling novel, which they wold discuss in tiny independent bookshops on quaint little streets in forgotten corners of terribly romantic European cities. In other words, I fantasize about being credible, in that artistic, slightly bohemian way that only girls with very long legs can get away with. — Amy Mowafi

Twenty seven years ago, during my first romantic relationship with a boy, I started keeping a diary about my thoughts and experiences. That diary formed the basis of my novel "A Dream of Two Moons," the title of which comes from some paranormal occurrences from real life. — Sahara Sanders

There was no romantic ending for Charlotte, but that's where writing your own novel can be so useful. — Catherine Lowell

Rachel Hauck is an award-winning, USA Today bestselling author. She is a RITA and Christy Award finalist. The Wedding Dress was named Inspirational Novel of the Year by Romantic Times. Rachel lives in central Florida with her husband and two pets and writes from her ivory — Rachel Hauck

The white lily stands for purity. Artists for centuries have pictured the angel Gabriel coming to the virgin Mary with a spray of lillies in his hand, to announce that she is to be the mother of the Turks. — Carroll Bryant

When I was pregnant, I had the romantic idea that after the baby was born I would not only take up reading in earnest again, but also write a novel while my daughter slept in her Moses basket. Of course, I barely had time to keep up with my magazines until she started sleeping properly. — Kate Beckinsale

I'm jealous of the cherries that have been in your mouth," he said, "that they get to make your lips so red." He kissed her softly, teasing her tongue with his, a lustful wet caress, and Austen was suspended in air. "I'm jealous of every single day before today that I didn't get to spend with you. — C.J. Carlyon

The lust and attraction are often a given in a romance novel - I want to dig into the elements of true friendship that form a foundation for a solid, gonna-last-forever romantic relationship. — Suzanne Brockmann

It's a romantic novel," Jaenelle said in a small voice as he called in his half-moon glasses and started idly flipping the pages. "A couple of women in a bookseller's shop kept talking about it." Romance. Passion. Sex. He suppressed - barely - the urge to leap to his feet and twirl her around the room. A sign of emotional healing? Please, sweet Darkness, please let it be a sign of healing. — Anne Bishop

In Gothic fiction, characters must contend with the dead, with active hauntings or with hallucinations of hauntings, as well as whatever other trying circumstances they might find themselves in: orphanhood, lunacy, imprisonment, inheritances that go astray, troubling romantic situations. The Gothic novel does not strive for subtlety, and it isn't to everyone's taste. It can seem adolescent, an immature version of the stately, measured, grown-up realist novel, except that the line between Gothic and the realist is never clear. A disdain for the Gothic is limiting, since this literature, in all its flagrancy, has something to say about emotional as well as physical death, and a tale of a haunting can have a narrative vitality that is far from conclusive. Gothic stories linger especially in the mind. — Brenda Walker

If you want to protect your pride, you don't need people to like you! — Wataru Watari

Her mother likes to say that novels have ruined Amelia for real men. This observation insults Amelia because it implies that she only reads books with classically romantic heroes. She does not mind the occasional novel with a romantic hero but her reading taste are far more varied than that. Furthermore, she adores Humbert Humbert as a character while accepting the fact that she wouldn't really want him for a life partner, a boyfriend, or even a casual acquaintance. She feels the same way about Holden Caulfield, and Misters Rochester and Darcy. — Gabrielle Zevin

In books and movies, the stories always end when the two people finally have their romantic kiss. The happily-ever-after part is just assumed — Gayle Forman

What am I to you?'
Sophiel smiled.
'The sun. You are my sun, like Astrid said. My sun, that lights up my life. That looks after me with its fiery rays. I only have to turn towards it for it to set fire to my heart. — A.O. Esther

Ethan: "I'm not asking you to continue that night."
Karis: "Then what are you asking?"
Ethan: "For a whole new night. — Monique DeVere

It's the pursuit of love and happiness that is the driving force of the romantic novel. — Susanna Kearsley

She's not tsundere. She's just an unpleasant woman. — Wataru Watari

She likes what all women like. Consideration, thoughtfulness, a man who will worship the very ground she walks on. Who could not bear to live if she was not in his life. A man who would sacrifice what he wants most for her." He stared. "You sound like you're reading from a romantic novel." "You asked what women want and there you have it." She shrugged. "For most women, such a man is only found between the pages of a novel. They are forced to settle for far less. — Victoria Alexander

To write a novel is to embark on a quest that is very romantic. People have visions, and the next step is to execute them. That's a very romantic project. Like Edvard Munch's strange dreamlike canvases where people are stylized, like 'The Scream.' Munch must have had that vision in a dream, he never saw it. — Joyce Carol Oates

Mary approaches her before she is able to reach her station. "Hello Lily. Get anything special for Christmas?"
"Just the usual." She answers. "Shattered dreams. — Carroll Bryant

Just as "normal" as anyone... only I write my thoughts out on paper & illustrate a world of Romance in your mind as you read my creations. ~ A. L. Woodz — Angel L. Woodz

I can't wait for everyone to read 'Don't Look Back.' It's something very different for me, my first romantic suspense novel, so I'm very excited to be sharing the book, finally. — Jennifer Armentrout

He smiles, his palpable charisma pulling me in like low tide. Or riptide. — Lisa Daily

A friendship where you're always trying to be considerate of the other person, always worrying about what they think, always responding to every single text, always seeking their approval and then finally connecting with them, isn't friendship at all. — Wataru Watari

Nothing is less trustworthy than a woman's tears. — Wataru Watari

over the centuries Dante has been variously "constructed" - as lover, statesman, neo-Platonist, proto-Protestant, Romantic visionary, Byronic hero, Pre-Raphaelite, father of his country, theologian in verse, precursor of the modern novel, and, finally, altissimo poeta, the consummate poet. — Peter S. Hawkins

He said it felt like walking into another century, being there, looking up at the mullion windows, all darkened now, and the castellated towers that rose up out of the clutch of the ivy. "And you," he said, "you look like the heroine of a nineteenth-century novel, with your beautifully serious face and your grave, grey eyes. So do you have a suitably romantic story to tell? — Justine Picardie

You snore."
She stopped in the middle of the hallway and gaped. "I do not."
"Oh yeah, you do." He nodded, beaming from ear to ear. "Cute, kind of baby snores, but still snores by standard definition. Maybe that was the problem that broke up you and David. Doctors need their sleep, you know. — Jennifer Shirk

In the end, Astrid couldn't do anything about my . . . turning into light, but she made a prediction. She said the sun would help me and I would be cured thanks to its efforts.'
'The sun?'
'Yes. It was the symbol I drew from among the runes. Astrid says it represents . . .'
'What?' he said, looking at me curiously, and I could see that he really wanted to hear the answer.
I became embarrassed.
'It's not important . . .' I muttered.
'Please tell me!' He turned fully towards me and I could feel myself blushing pink.
'The . . . man in my life.'
I was done for. My heart was beating heavily but Elijah, for the first time since I had awoken, smiled. I was incredibly ashamed of myself, so I made to go back to the house, but the Dark Angel grabbed my wrist. — A.O. Esther

Hayato Hayama [. . .] Basically, he was good-looking and stylish in a casual way. Fuck that guy. — Wataru Watari

What the hell? Die in a fire, youth. Die in a fire. — Wataru Watari

You don't get one chance at life but many over one lifetime. — Elize Amornette

Frankly, if her face wasn't so cute, I would most certainly have been punching it. — Wataru Watari

You, and in fact quite a lot of your generation, have in some way been exiled from that particular sanctuary. It's become almost impossible for someone to "go mad" in the classical sense. At one time people conveniently "went mad" and were never heard from again. Like a character in a romantic novel. But now you are too hip to yourself on a psychological level. You all are too intimate with too many of the symptoms of insanity to be caught completely off your guard. — Ken Kesey

Weird that a house so new could feel haunted, and not in the romantic Victorian-novel way, just really gruesomely, shittily ruined. — Gillian Flynn

I'm Tiny And My Reach Is Limited. I Can Give YOU Only What I Have And Surely When I Give, I Don't Keep Anything For Me. To YOU, It's Nothing Probably As YOU've Got Everything. My Everything Would Be Unnoticed. It Seems Like "A Rain Drop To The Ocean" ... (From The Romantic Story "Reflection of The Rainbow") ... — Muhammad Imran Hasan

Because I'm attracted to you. Because you're the poster child for contradictions and I enjoy each one of them. You're funny when you're being so damn serious. You have a kind heart and protective nature that reminds me so much of my father. — N.D. Jones

Can I kiss you?" And she would let him, lightly on her lips, a moment of brief anticipation. "Your kisses are like sugar woman." He would tell her affectionately. "So sweet." He would close in on her and then ask softly, "Please spend the night with me. — Keira D. Skye

The Seduction Factor was a very hot and romantic series." - Colorado Cowgirl — Scarlett Avery

One should not chug an entire glass of wine at an elegant dinner party. I start hacking and coughing, having practically water-boarded myself out of sheer humiliation. — Lisa Daily