She Is The Only One I Love Quotes & Sayings

I locate the ladies' room. Luckily, it's empty, no one to see the vacant-eyed girl, staring in the mirror. Staring at a stranger who doesn't care if she dies. Maybe she wants to die. Who would care if I died? My face is hollow-cheeked, spiced with sores
the places where I stab at bugs. Tiny bugs, almost invisible, but irritating. Usually they come out at night, when I'm lying there, begging for sleep. I've been meaning to tell the manager that the apartment needs to be sprayed. Sprayed. Steam cleaned. Deodorized. My hair looks odd too. It used to be darker. Shinier. Prettier. Can hair lose color when you're only eighteen? What if I go all the way gray? Will Trey still love me? Will anyone? That is, if I fool them all and don't die. — Ellen Hopkins

The only thing you can neither plan nor control, my dearest love, the duke had once told her, is love itself. When you find it, you must yield to it. But only if it is the one and only true passion of your life. Never if it is anything less than that, or life will consume you.
But how am I to know? She had asked him.
You will know. — Mary Balogh

I do not think that Mulder trusts any one other than Scully. He s very solitary. She is the only one who takes him seriously. I don t know if they re in love. In a way, their relationship is deeper than that, because they cannot live without each other. — David Duchovny

Oberon could not speak for the burning anger on is tongue. Instead, he drew back his mighty fist and would have knocked his captain clean off the wall, down on the jagged rocks below...
Only suddenly, standing between him and his prey was the gloriously golden image of his wife smiling sweetly up at him.
"Really, darling, such a display. And so public too!" she said, laughing like the ringing of a bell chorus. "What will all the little ones think?'
"Out of my way, Titania!" Oberon bellowed. "Puck has told me of your part in all this nonsense, and I'll be dealing with you next!"
But Titania had seen too many of her husband's tempers over the long centuries of their marriage to mind him much now. "Don't be ridiculous," she said lightly, tapping him on the nose with one long, elegant finger. 'Do you really want to stand in the way of true love? When you start meddling with people's hearts, things never go well, as everyone knows. — Camryn Lockhart

I love you," she whispers.
"It's only a week," I tell her, but I loathe this separation as much as she does.
Echo looks at me with those pleading green eyes. I twine my fingers into her curls. The first taste of her lips is sweet. The second makes me forget there's a bus terminal full of people. The third causes me to lift her feet off the ground and deepen our kiss.
"Noah," she whispers in reprimand as she breaks away. "We're causing a scene."
"Not my problem." But I lower her to the ground anyhow. "Besides, it wasn't my fault. You're the one looking at me with take-me-to-bed eyes, and I felt you kissing me back. Once again, you're the one getting us into trouble."
Echo grins. "You are so impossible."
"Damn straight, baby. — Katie McGarry

In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who in despite of view is pleased to dote;
Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted,
Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensual feast* with thee alone*:
But my five wits* nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man*,
Thy proud hearts slave and vassal wretch to be:
Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
That she that makes me sin awards me pain. — William Shakespeare

I will rise now and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek the one I love." She is whispering that, and she whispers, "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. He said, this stature of mine is like to a palm tree, and my breasts like clusters of grapes. He said he would come to me then. I am my beloved's and his desire is only toward me. — Neil Gaiman

It's my own fault, really. For believing in fairy tales. Not that I ever mistook them for actual historical fact, or anything. But I did grow up believing that for every girl, there's a prince out there somewhere. All she has to do is find him. Then it's on with the
happily ever after. So you can only imagine what happened when I found out. That my prince really IS one. A prince. No, I really mean it. He's an actual PRINCE. — Meg Cabot

I read once that the best thing that can happen to a woman is to get her heart broken. Before that, she has no real sense of herself. No real sense of pain, because only in love does she know what it's like to find the one thing that gives her breath and then to lose it.
After that, she knows she can survive. No matter what relationships come and go, she can count on herself to pull through, and although it hurts, the break is necessary — Colleen Hoover

This is the way we love. She said,
if there were more than one moon I wouldn't know
what to do or where to begin.

If the fog never lifts, the city's still
there. She said, some things only know

one way to hide. This is the way we love,

she said, with a shotgun
under the bed. Under your skin the bone is setting.

And her hand smoothed the skin.
And her hand set the bone. — Brian Russell

Because she stepped into my world, I began to savor everything, be it a glass of water or a walk in the park. I was positively in-love with her, because she was the greatest positive force in my life. People tried to tell me that I was not in-love with her, and that I only thought that I was. However, reality is almost always wrong, and no one sees the world the way that I do. No one sees her the way that I do. She is the one that puts flavor into my water, and makes an average walk in the park absolutely divine. In my world, in my reality, she is the one that I choose to be in-love with. — Lionel Suggs

Farther on, in another place, she wrote: 'Do not consider my words as the sickly ecstasies of a diseased mind, but you are, in my opinion - perfection! I have seen you - I see you every day. I do not judge you; I have not weighed you in the scales of Reason and found you Perfection - it is simply an article of faith. But I must confess one sin against you - I love you. One should not
love perfection. One should only look on it as perfection - yet I am in love with you. Though love equalizes, do not fear. I have not lowered you to my level,
even in my most secret thoughts. I have written 'Do not fear,' as if you could fear. I would kiss your footprints if I
could; but, oh! I am not putting myself on a level with you! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Wednesday, March 23 I know now that I love Clarimonda. That she has entered into the very fiber of my being. It may be that the loves of other men are different. But does there exist one head, one ear, one hand that is exactly like hundreds of millions of others? There are always differences, and it must be so with love. My love is strange, I know that, but is it any the less lovely because of that? Besides, my love makes me happy.

If only I were not so frightened. Sometimes my terror slumbers and I forget it for a few moments, then it wakes and does not leave me. The fear is like a poor mouse trying to escape the grip of a powerful serpent. Just wait a bit, poor sad terror. Very soon, the serpent love will devour you.

"The Spider — Hanns Heinz Ewers

Why? Don't you know why you love me?"
"I know that I'm happiest at your side," I said fervently. "I know that when we're apart, my heart is with you, when we disagree I still want you near. It's like I was made for you, amira, but I don't know why."
"Kashmir . . ." She laughed a little in disbelief. "That's . . . that's what love looks like."
"But is it only a trick of Navigation?" I asked, nearly pleading. "And if so, what is truly mine?"
"I am."
Her words took me by surprise. She said it so simply - so quiet, so true. Only two words, three letters, one breath, but never had a promise held more meaning. She turned to me then, and in her eyes, I saw not oblivion, but infinity, and the stars were not as bright as her smile. — Heidi Heilig

Enough,' said Mercedes, 'enough Edmond! Believe me that she who alone recognized you has been the only one to comprehend you. And had she crossed your path, and you had crushed her like a frail glass, still, Edmond, still she must have admired you! Like the gulf between me and the past, there is an abyss between you, Edmond, and the rest of mankind; and I tell you freely, that the comparison I drew between you and other men will be one of my greatest tortures. No! there is nothing in the world to resemble you in worth and goodness! — Alexandre Dumas

Well, what if ... " Scarlet listed her head. "You said the control when your animal instincts will overpower your own thoughts right? But fighting and hunting aren't the only instincts wolves have. Aren't wolves ... monogamous, for starters?" Her cheeks started to burn and she had to look away, scratching her fork into a set of initial. "And isn't the alpha male the one who's responsible for protecting everyone? Not only the pack, but his mate too?" Dropping the fork, she threw her hands into the air. "I'm not saying I think you and I are
after just
I know we just met and that's ... but it's not out of the questions, is it? That your instincts to protect me could be as strong as your instincts to kill? — Marissa Meyer

Cool wind soothed her. She could breathe sweet air. The only heat she felt was the warm, familiar heat from the mage's body. Opening her eyes, she saw that she stood close to him. Raising her head, she gazed up into his face ... and felt a swift, sharp ache in her heart.
Raistlin's thin face glistened with sweat, his eyes reflected the pure, white flame of the burning bodies, his breath came fast and shallow. He seemed lost, unaware of his surroundings. And there was a look of ecstasy on his face, a look of exultation, of triumph.
"I understand," Crysania said to herself, holding onto his hands. "I understand. This is why he cannot love me. He has only one love in this life and that is his magic. To this love he will give everything, for this love he will risk everything! — Margaret Weis

I loved the way she said 'LA'; I love the way everybody says 'LA' on the Coast; it's their one and only golden town when all is said and done. — Jack Kerouac

But you love books, then," Aunt Queen was saying. I had to listen.
"Oh, yes," Lestat said. "Sometimes they are the only thing that keeps me alive."
"What a strange thing to say at your age," she laughed.
"No, but one can feel desperate at any age, don't you think? The young are eternally desperate," he said frankly. "And books, they offer one hope - - that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that new universe, one is saved. — Anne Rice

Carol would not be a bad one to [settle down] with. She's pretty and bright, and maybe this is what love is. She's good company: her interests broaden almost every day. She reads three books to my one, and I read a lot. We talk far into the night. She still doesn't understand the first edition game: Hemingway, she says, reads just as well in a two-bit paperback as he does in a $500 first printing. I can still hear myself lecturing her the first time she said that. Only a fool would read a first edition. Simply having such a book makes life in general and Hemingway in particular go better when you do break out the reading copies. I listened to myself and thought, This woman must think I'm a government-inspected horse's ass. Then I showed her my Faulkners, one with a signature, and I saw her shiver with an almost sexual pleasure as she touched the paper where he signed. Faulkner was her most recent god[.] — John Dunning

Before I moved here, I never got the whole love-triangle thing. You know, in movies or romance novels or whatnot, where there's one chick that all the guys are drooling over, even though you can't see anything particularly special about her. But oh, no, they both must have her. And she's like, oh dear, however will I choose? William is so sensitive, he understands me, he swept me off my feet, oh misery, blubber, blubber, but how can I go on living without Rafe and his devil-may-care ways and his dark and only-a-little-abusive love? Upchuck. — Cynthia Hand

After nine nights must come ten and every desperate meeting only leaves you desperate for another. There is never enough to eat, never enough garden for your love.
So you refuse and then you discover that your house is haunted by the ghost of a leopard.
When passion comes late in life it is hard to bear.
One more night. How tempting. How innocent. I could stay tonight surely? What difference could it make, one more night? No. If I smell her skin, find the mute curves of her nakedness, she will reach in her hand and withdraw my heart like a bird's egg. I have not had time to cover my heart in barnacles to elude her. If I give in to this passion, my real life, the most solid, the best known, will disappear and I will feed on shadows again like those sad spirits whom Orpheus fled.
I wished her goodnight, touching her hand only and thankful for the dark that hid her eyes. — Jeanette Winterson

While the world has found the right names for all chronic mental diseases, I believe poetry is also a brain dysfunction, yet the only one that owns itself the mastery for the cure. Isn't it lovely to say, "He/She suffers of Poetry?". — Ioana-Cristina Casapu

Lleu is a hard lord," said Huw, "He is killing Gronw without anger, without love, without mercy. He is hurt too much by the woman and the spear. Yet what is there when it is done? His pride. No spear. No friend."
Roger started at Huw. "You're not so green as you're grass-looking, are you?" he said. "Now you mention it, I have been thinking - That bloke Gronw was the only one with any real guts at the end."
"But none of them is all to blame," said Huw. "It is only together they are destroying each other."
"That Blod-woman was pretty poor," said Roger, "however you look at it."
"No," said Huw. "She was made for her lord. Nobody is asking her if she wants him. It is bitter twisting to be shut up with a person you are not liking very much. I think she was longing for the time when she was flowers on the mountain, and it is making her cruel, as the rose is growing thorns. — Alan Garner

I worry and I wonder. And when I'm with her I'm happy. This is probably what love is. But I believe there is only one love. It would be nice if there was one more ... but there is only one. I think I was giving that love to Hae Ryung before she even matured. — John The Apostle

I asked Geertrui the other day what she thought love is-real love, true love. She said that for her real love is observing another person and being observed by another person with complete attention. If she's right, you only have to look at the pictures Rembrandt painted of Titus, and there are quite a lot, to see that they loved each other. Because that is what you're seeing. Complete attention, one of the other ... "but in that case," he said, speaking the words as the thought came to him, "all art is love, because all art is about looking closely, isn't it? Looking closely at what's being painted."
"The artist looking closely while he paints, the viewer looking closely at what has been painted. I agree. All true art, yes. Painting, Writing-literature-also. I think it is. And bad art is a failure to observe with complete attention. So, you see why I like the history of art. It's the study of how to observe life with complete attention. It's the history of love. — Aidan Chambers

Daddy dear, I'm only four
And I'd rather not be more.
Four's the nicest age to be,
Two and two and one and three.
What I love is two and two,
Mother, Peter, Phil, and you.
What you love is one and three,
Mother, Peter, Phil, and me.
Give your little girl a kiss
Because she learned and told you this. — E. Nesbit

Actually, I believe there are only two kinds of women in this world: Martha people and Oprah people. That doesn't mean one can't have an affinity for both of them, but my theory is that every chick is more firmly in one camp than the other. The typical Oprah woman is all self-actualized and best-life-y and Eat, Pray, Love. The Big O seems like the kind of gal who'd insist we all spend the afternoon wearing jammy pants. And how fun would that be?!
But Martha?
She's not putting up with that nonsense, and that makes me adore her all the more. She'll tell you what to eat, where to pray, and who to love, and I appreciate the guidance. — Jen Lancaster

Don't be scared," Willa Mae said.
I looked at her. "Aren't you scared?"
Willa Mae looked at me and said, "Shoot. Only thing I'm afraid of is that I'm going to do something I'll regret."
"Being scared is just one more thing to turn into what you want it to be," Willa Mae said. "The thing with fear is, it's like anger. You've got to change it into something else. Make it your weapon. Some can just turn it into smarts. The best of 'em can turn fear and anger into love." She looked out toward our neighborhood. "I'm not there yet. — Margaret McMullan

If you threw a brick at someone you would be responsible for them feeling pain, presumably,' Libby said. 'But if you do the right thing and it makes someone feel bad, isn't that their problem? Then again, how do you even know what the right thing is? Who decides?' 'It's so confusing. I am sure about Mark, but I was sure about Bob before that, and Richard before that. Maybe Mark isn't for ever, I just think he is now when I can't have him. I have to face up to this about myself. I fall in love like that.' She clicked her fingers. 'I always have. For other people, love is like some rare orchid that can only grow in one place under a certain set of conditions. For me it's like bindweed. It grows with no encouragement at all, under any conditions, and just strangles everything else. Good metaphor, huh? — Scarlett Thomas

Such lavish devotion made me proud to think that the wealth was all my own which drove you to my gate. But vanity such as this only checks the flow of free surrender in a woman's love. When I sit on he queen's throne and claim homage, then the claim only goes on magnifying itself; it is never satisfied. Can there be any real happiness for a woman in merely feeling that she has power over a man? To surrender one's pride in devotion is woman's only salvation. — Rabindranath Tagore

It's just how love gets described in the movies. Like in Sleepless in Seattle ... " This is the movie they showed us last night. "Tom Hanks's character is musing about why he fell in love with his dead wife, and he says that it was because she could peel an apple in one long strip, or something like that. And I was reading something similar in a book recently, only that was about peeling an orange ... anyway ... I've just never felt like the way someone peels fruit would be a reason to spend the rest of your life with them. — Catherine McKenzie

You've done her a service to teach her that romantic love is largely made of illusion." [said Mina.]
"Is it?" Alessandra asked, unable to suppress a worried sigh.
Mina looked at her as if she knew exactly what Alessandra was thinking. "I said 'romantic love,' my dear
not true love."
"But how can one know," asked Alessandra, "one from the other?"
"True love," said Mina, "is something that reveals itself only with the passage of time. — Barbara Quick

And because I still feel like I haven't said enough - because I need to prove just how momentous this is for me, I bash down the barriers I've kept up for eight years, unleashing my aura for Anna to see. I shiver as I bare myself, and I feel Anna holding me tighter. I want her to see my love, like I saw hers once upon a time.
"Oh ... " she whispers. "It's beautiful."
I shake my head. Only one thing deserves that word. "You're beautiful. — Wendy Higgins

The Indians are the Italians of Asia", Didier pronounced with a sage and mischievous grin. "It can be said, certainly, with equal justice, that the Italians are the Indians of Europe, but you do understand me, I think. There is so much Italian in the Indians, and so much Indians in the Italians. They are both people of the Madonna - they demand a goddess, even if the religion does not provide one. Every man in both countries is a singer when he is happy, and every woman is a dancer when she walks to the shop at the corner. For them, food is music inside the body, and music is food inside the heart. The Language of India and the language of Italy, they make every man a poet, and make something beautiful from every banalite. They are nations where love - amore, pyaar - makes a cavalier of a Borsalino on a street corner, and makes a princess of a peasant girl, if only for the second that her eyes meet yours. — Gregory David Roberts

My grandma always had chocolate-covered cherries," D said, his tone curled at the edges, like he'd surprised himself with the memory. Jack slid up a little so he could watch D's face. "Usedta love them things. The way they'd kinda burst open when ya bit 'em, and that syrupy stuff inside, then the cherry. I'd bite off one side a the shell real careful-like, so none a the syrup spilled, then suck all the gooey out, then fish out the cherry with my tongue, then I'd just have the chocolate shell left and I'd nibble on it 'til it was gone. She'd only let me have one or two so I hadta make 'em last." He glanced at Jack, who was just staring at him, his mouth open. "What?"
"That is the sexiest thing I've ever heard."
D flushed and fidgeted. "Aw, hell."
"Seriously. Ask me how much I want to go get some chocolate-covered cherries right now just so I can watch you eat them. — Jane Seville

We hug, but there are no tears. For every awful thing that's been said and done, she is my sister. Parents die, daughters grow up and marry out, but sisters are for life. She is the only person left in the world who shares my memories of our childhood, our parents, our Shanghai, our struggles, our sorrows, and, yes, even our moments of happiness and triumph. My sister is the one person who truly knows me, as I know her. The last thing May says to me is 'When our hair is white, we'll still have our sister love. — Lisa See

Good morning, Hell-A. In the land of the lotus-eaters, time plays tricks on you. One day you're dreaming, the next, your dream has become your reality. It was the best of times. If only someone had told me. Mistakes were made, hearts were broken, harsh lessons learned. My family goes on without me, while I drown in a sea of pointless pussy. I don't know how I got here. But here I am, rotting away in the warm California sun. There are things I need to figure out, for her sake, at least. The clock is ticking. The gap is widening. She won't always love me no matter what — Hank Moody

I will tell you, too, that every fairy tale has a moral. The moral of my story may be that love is a constraint, as strong as any belt. And this is certainly true, which makes it a good moral. Or it may be that we are all constrained in some way, either in our bodies, or in our hearts or minds, an Empress as well as the woman who does her laundry ... Perhaps it is that a shoemaker's daughter can bear restraint less easily than an aristocrat, that what he can bear for three years she can endure only for three days ... Or perhaps my moral is that our desire for freedom is stronger than love or pity. That is a wicked moral, or so the Church has taught us. But I do not know which moral is the correct one. And that is also the way of a fairy tale. — Theodora Goss

I only know what it is that's wrong with him; not why it is."
And what is it?" asked Lucy fearfully, expecting some harrowing tale.
The old trouble; things won't fit."
What things?"
The things of the universe. It's quite true. They don't."
Oh Mr. Emerson, whatever do you mean?"
In his ordinary voice, so that she scarcely realized he was quoting poetry, he said:

"'From far, from eve and morning,
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither: here am I."

George and I both know this, but why does it distress him? We know that we come from the winds, and that we shall return to them; that all of life is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness. But why should this make us unhappy? Let us rather love one another, and work and rejoice. I don't believe in this world of sorrow. — E. M. Forster

She stopped and looked at him when she heard a low growl.
"You've kissed someone?"
Sally tried to hold back the snort of laughter that bubble out. "Of course. I'm eighteen, Costin. Only having kissed one guy by eighteen is pretty darn conservative."
"I don't want to know about this guy," Costin frowned. "He won't hold a candle to my kisses anyway. — Quinn Loftis

I knew right then you were the only one for me." He pulled her hand
from his face, kissed her palm, then pressed it flat against his chest. "Beatings, battles, fights. No matter how bleak the circumstance, no matter how my soul despaired ... this heart never once gave up." His voice deepened, went thick with emotion. "I've a theory as to why. Do you want to hear it?"
She nodded.
"This heart is yours. It's yours," he said. "It always will be. — Tessa Dare

And what about ageing? Do men force the fear of ageing upon us
or are we ourselves terrified because we only know one kind of power
the power of youthful beauty?
Isn't it possible that if we became comfortable with other forms of female power, men might too? In her wonderful futurist novel, He, She, and It, Marge Piercy imagines a cyborg who is taught to love the bodies of older women. A delicious proposal
because it tells that whatever we may imagine can come true. Women often hate their own bodies. Sometimes I think that the most important things about having at least one relationship with someone of your own gender
especially if you are a woman
is to confront the female self-hatred and turn it into self-love. — Erica Jong

So you're in love with her?' she went on.
A word again ... When the minds have learnt to mingle, when no thought is wholly one's own, and each has taken too much of the other ever to be entirely himself alone; when one has reached the beginning of seeing with a single eye, loving with a single heart, enjoying with a single joy; when there can be moments of identity and nothing is separate save bodies that long for one another ... When there is that, where is the word? There is only the inadequacy of the word that exists.
'We love one another,' I said. — John Wyndham

She had always called me 'you.' 'Is that you?' on the telephone, 'Can you? Will you? Do you?' so that I imagined, like a fool, for a few minutes at a time, there was only one 'you' in the world and that was me. — Graham Greene

She was the only one who argued with Grace. 'He's not a good choice for you,' she insisted. 'He respects you too much.'
'Respect is good,' Grace said, thinking of how Colin slighted her letters. 'I want respect.'
'It's not enough.'
'He loves me!'
Not the right way.'
Finally Grace turned on her sister in a rage. 'Don't you see, Lily? Must you make me say this aloud? No one will ever love me in the /right/ way, not in that feverish way that men fall in love with you. I'm not that sort of woman!'
Lily cried, and Grace ended up crying, too. — Eloisa James

You couldn't get more original than Laura. Laura. Yes, she was an original, all right. One of a kind. Did they break her mold or what, pal? Or ... or did it self-destruct? Still, Laura. The one and the only. Such a plain name for a unique cutie. But perhaps my acuity is not without its problems. I ruin everything: a stupid story to be tapped out on my tomb's stone. I ruined even Laura. And an original ruin is rare. Just ask the archaeologist, "Egypt, again?" Just ask me, "Laura, again?" and we'll both respond: "Yes, again and again. And again. — Vladimir Nabokov

should therefore make the most of every half-hour in which she can command his attention. When she is secure of him, there will be more leisure for falling in love as much as she chooses." "Your plan is a good one," replied Elizabeth, "where nothing is in question but the desire of being well married, and if I were determined to get a rich husband, or any husband, I dare say I should adopt it. But these are not Jane's feelings; she is not acting by design. As yet, she cannot even be certain of the degree of her own regard nor of its reasonableness. She has known him only a fortnight. She — Jane Austen

Fiona, my love, as much as I adore you, I cannot stand your brothers. Any of them."
"Gregor is much nicer now that he's married. Even you must admit that."
"Only when Venetia is with him. When she's not, he's as annoying as ever."
Fiona's lips quirked into a smile, her green eyes gleaming. "Rather like you, I hear."
"Who has been carrying tales?"
"Everyone." She placed her hand on her husband's cheek and smiled up into his blue eyes. With his dark auburn hair and devastating good looks, "Black Jack" Kincaid had once been the scourge of London's polite society. Now he was her own personal scourge, one she couldn't imagine living without. — Karen Hawkins

Fynn, I love you.' When Anna said that, every word was shattered with the fullness of meaning she packed into it. Her 'I' was a totality. Whatever this 'I' was for Anna it was packed tight with being. Like the light that didn't fray, Anna's 'I' didn't fray either; it was pure and all of one piece. Her use of the word 'love' was not sentimental or mushy, it was impelling and full of courage and encouragement. For Anna, 'love' meant the recognition of perfectibility in another. Anna 'saw' a person in every part. Anna 'saw' a 'you'. Now that is something to experience, to be seen as a 'you', clearly and definitely, with no parts hidden. Wonderful and frightening. I'd always understood that it was Mister God who saw you clearly and in your entirety but then all Anna's efforts were directed to being like Mister God, so perhaps the trick is catching if only you try hard enough. — Fynn

That's what love is, Marissa. It's not magic or voodoo. It's real. You can explain it. I an tell you exactly why I love Sarah." I hold my hand out and, thank God, Sarah gently interlaces her fingers with mine. 'I had lots of friends when I was little but by the time I turned eight they were mostly gone. It turns out blind Parker with a dead mom wasn't nearly as much fun as she was before the accident. I couldn't run around and play and I cried all the time and knocked over everything and turned into a royal bitch and one by one my friends disappeared until there were only two left. I'm not saying they were the only one who understood me or were nice, just that they were the ones who didn't go off and find easier people to be friends with. I love Sarah because she's been my best fiend and stayed that way when it got really really hard to be my friend at all. — Eric Lindstrom

I think Dante would agree with you. Even though Beatrice married someone else and died young, Dante loved her his entire life. The love was a part of him, because to him, Beatrice was ideal. He barely knew her, had only met her twice, but yet he truly claimed to love her. Can anyone tell me why?"No one spoke up. Carmine sighed exasperatedly. This lesson was becoming frustrating to sit through. "Because he really loved the person she made him. It has just as much to do with how he felt as it did with who she was.""You're right," Mrs. Chavis said. "Dante said of her, 'she has ineffable courtesy, is my beatitude, the destroyer of all vices and the queen of virtue, salvation.' To him, she was his savior, the epitome of good. She rid him of his evil, made him feel worthwhile. That, we could argue, may be what he loved most of all. — J.M. Darhower

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

Much of what is written on the craft is biased in one way or another, so weed out what is useful to you and ignore the rest. I see the next few years as being crucial in the transformation of our culture away from the patriarchal death cults and toward the love of life, of nature, of the female principle. The craft is only one path among the many opening up for women, and many of us will blaze new trails as we explore the uncharted country of our own interiors. The heritage, the culture, the knowledge of the ancient priestesses, healers, poets, singers, and seers were nearly lost, but a seed survived the flames that will blossom in a new age into thousands of flowers. The long sleep of Mother Goddess is ended. May She awaken in each of our hearts ~~ Merry meet, merry part, and blessed be. — Starhawk

Kristian, if you don't love me now, no one ever will. This is it; you are the only person that knows I'm here. If you move on, there is no one else." She sounds defeated.
"I know," I say softly. And that's exactly why I won't, I can't, move on. — Dannielle Wicks

I can rest my hands on my abdomen and know that he or she is a fighter, is healthy, and can't wait for me to hold him or her in my arms. I can sit here and feel the love surging through me for this baby Colton and I made together, and know without a doubt, this perfect little being will only cement and make stronger the love we feel for one another. — K. Bromberg

A simple love-story,' said David piously, 'about a girl that loves a man frightfully and he is married, so she goes and lives with him, and then his wife is very ill and going to die, so the girl and the man both offer themselves for blood transfusion in a very noble way without each other knowing. But only one of them has the right kind of blood and I can't decide which. Do you think it would be more pathetic if the girl gave her blood and died, and then the man went off into the desert to be a monk, or if the man died and the wife and the girl made friends over his corpse and both became nuns? One might do good business with that, because in films no one much cares if the hero lives or dies so long as there are plenty of lovely heroines.' 'How — Angela Thirkell

She lifted one shoulder and lowered it. 'Because love is for 'lucky among us.
'What does that mean?' he said, her words rioting through him, unwelcome in their eerie truth.
'Only that I am not counted among the lucky. Everyone I have ever loved has left. — Sarah MacLean

Here's my most important rule: Never have intercourse when one of the parties is in love with the other. It won't end well."
She gasped. Her whole world turned grey. "You arrogant cad! I'm not in love with you."
"I know." He didn't look away from her. "Isn't that what I said? Only one of us is in love and it isn't you. — Courtney Milan

Everyone has been overjoyed with the birth of their first son, bringing celebratory sweets, new clothes for the baby, fennel tea to bolster her milk supply. They have showered on her all the traditional gifts, as if this is her first baby, their first child. What about the other times I've carried a baby in my womb, given birth, held my child in my arms?
But no one acknowledges this, not even Jasu. Only Kavita has an aching cavity in her heart for what she's lost. She sees the pride in Jasu's eyes as he holds his son and forces herself to smile while saying a silent prayer for this child. She hopes she can give him the life he deserves. She prays she will be a good mother to her son, prays she has enough maternal love left in her heart for him, prays it didn't die along with her daughters. — Shilpi Somaya Gowda

For a long time I thought the object of the game was identifying the question, love versus freedom, Mandela vs Buthelezi, leave or stay forever ghosted under a thick curtain of oil. Nora said, Maybe a choice isn't the right way to think of it, by which she might have meant, A question loses its power when there is only one answer, as in, yes to Bhutan and Barstow. Yes to chanterelles and portobellos. A temple. Yes. A mosque. Yes. The changeable heart of a child. — Pam Houston

Except they kept asking me questions like 'What is your biggest source of conflict about the Pope?' Or 'Has the Pope ever tried to suppress your scientific work?' Completely out of left field!
"They didn't want to hear me tell them how much Pope Benedict supported the Vatican Observatory and its scientific work. So, finally, frustrated that they weren't getting the story they wanted out of me, one of them asked, 'Would you baptize an extraterrestrial?'
"What did you answer?"
"Only if she asks!"
"I love it! How did they react?"
"They all got a good laugh, which is what I intended. And then, the next day, they all ran my joke as if it were a straight story, as if I had made some sort of official Vatican pronouncement about aliens. — Guy Consolmagno

I would walk over g-glass for you, in a damn hospital gown with my ass h-hanging out. And your son is brilliant. I look forward to playing Legos with him again." He dared to reach out and tuck some hair behind her ear. "And I love you because you're the only one that sees me, not the scars or the h-history, just me. You scare the hell out of me with how much you see." She — J.M. Madden

Do you want to know why you don't meet my standards?" he asked.
She shook her head in mortification.
"Too late," he replied. "Here's my most important rule: Never have intercourse when one of the parties is in love with the other. It won't end well."
She gasped. "You arrogant cad! I'm not in love with you."
"I know." He didn't look away from her. "Isn't that what I said? Only one of us is in love, and it isn't you."
Violet stared at him. Her ears appeared to be working; her brain seemed to function. Tentatively, she added two and three and verified that they still made five. — Courtney Milan

I change the channel to another movie. An old one, but new to me. And, ironically, a thin, gorgeous blonde - Meg Ryan, maybe - rides her bike on a country road. She smiles like she has no cares in the world. Like no one ever judges her. Like her life is perfect. Wind through her hair and sunshine on her face. The only thing missing are the rainbows and butterflies and cartoon birds singing on her shoulder.

Maybe I should grab my bike and try to catch up with Mom, Mike, and the kids. They can't be going very fast. I would love to feel like that, even if it's just for a second - free and peaceful and normal.
Suddenly, there's a truck. It can't be headed toward Meg Ryan. Could it? Yes. Oh my God. No! Meg Ryan just got hit by that truck.

Figures. See what happens when you exercise? — K.A. Barson

Death come to all men.
It is only a matter of time.
But even if your flesh is gone,your immortal soul lives on.
Whether you live or die it's the same to me...
That's why i'm not worried.
I don't need to worry.
But...
For some reason,i don't know why,but...
I think she deserves more fun in her life.
I want her to make lots of friends,and have a lot of fun times,and fall in love...Just like everyone at home.
I am a Dullahan,one how guides souls to their resting place...i'm not allowed to change someone's fate
Even so...i still...
I still want to save her.
I...what should i do? — OKAYADO

So we did the only thing we knew to do. We got in the car and drove to Dallas to be at the funeral with Jen. As she and her family walked down the center aisle behind her dad's casket, she smiled at us despite the big tears that were rolling down her cheeks. And that's when I learned one of the most important lessons I've ever learned about what it means to be a good friend: you show up for your people. You don't wait for your friend to ask you to come; you get in your car and go. You don't have to know the right words to say, you don't have to offer sage wisdom about loss and love; you just show up. You hold her hand and hug her neck and wipe her tears. You let her know that you hurt because she is in pain, and you'd do anything to take it from her if you could. You listen.... You show up for your friend, in the good times and the bad times. — Melanie Shankle

Is that all I am? A friend?"
"Of course not," I say. "I love you."
"Am I the only one?" she asks.
"Yes. Completely." First, last, and always. — Julie Anne Peters

I live now for my work. I live for my work. I live only for my work. One day I will do work deserving of my talent & desire. One day. This I pledge. This I vow. I want you to love me for my work. But if you don't love me I can't continue my work. So please love me! - so I can continue my work. I am trapped here! I am trapped in this blond mannequin with the face. I can only breathe through that face! Those nostrils! That mouth! Help me to be perfect. If God was in us, we would be perfect. God is not in us, we know this for we are not perfect. I don't want money & fame. I want only to be perfect. The blond mannequin Monroe is me & is not me. She is not me. She is what I was born. Yes I want you to love her. So you will love me. Oh I want to love you! Where are you? I look, I look & there is no one there. — Joyce Carol Oates

There is only one thing solid enough to hold on to and it is her. I love her. She is my other half, my second chance, the only way in the world I could have learned to be more than a monster. Her weakness showed me my strength, her faith made me believe, her love made me whole. I will never forget her, and I wont let her go. — Stacey Jay

You were right the first time, Cathy. It was a stupid, silly story.
Ridiculous! Only insane people would die for the sake of love. I'll
bet you a hundred to one a woman wrote that junky romantic trash!"
Just a minute ago I'd despised that author for bringing about such a
miserable ending, then there I went, rushing to the defense. "T. M.
Ellis could very well have been a man! Though I doubt any woman writer
in the nineteenth century had much chance of being published, unless
she used her initials, or a man's name. And why is it all men think
everything a woman writes is trivial or trashy-or just plain silly
drivel? Don't men have romantic notions? Don't men dream of finding
the perfect love? And it seems to me, that Raymond was far more
mushy-minded than Lily! — V.C. Andrews

If there is no love, what is there?" she cried, almost jeering.
"There is," he said, in a voice of pure abstraction, "a final me which is stark and impersonal and beyond responsibility. So there is a final you. And it is there I would want to meet you-not in the emotional loving plane-but there beyond, where there is no speech and no terms of agreement. There we are two stark, unknown beings, two utterly strange creatures, I would want to approach you, and you me. And there could be no obligation, because there is no standard for action there, because no understanding has been reaped from that plane. It is quite inhuman-so there can be no calling to book, in any form whatsoever-because one is outside the pale of all that is accepted, and nothing known applies. On can only follow the impulse, taking that which lies in front, and responsible for nothing, asked for nothing, giving nothing, only each taking according to the primal desire. — D.H. Lawrence

Termite, you're young, and I'm not sure if you're going to understand what I'm about to say, but here's the nugget: Without the heart, nothing else matters. She could be the Goddess of Love, you could have all the mind-blowing sex you could physically handle, but when the shooting is over, and you're starting to think about getting a bite to eat, smoking a cigarette, or what you do with her now, you're just lying in bed with a woman who means little more to you than the remote control for your TV. Love is not tool; neither is a woman's heart. What I'm talking about, you won't find in that magazine."
"How would you know? You just said you've only loved one woman. I think you need to test-drive a few cars before you buy one."
"You can buy that lie if you want, but if you're working for a bank, you don't study the counterfeit to know the real thing. You study the real thing to know the counterfeit."
Reese talking to Termite, pg. 109-110 — Charles Martin

Mine is only one of the millions of hearts broken over the death of Whitney Houston, I will always be grateful and in awe of the wonderful performance she did on my song, and I can truly say from the bottom of my heart, 'Whitney, I will always love you. You will be missed.' — Dolly Parton

She is the only one who knows
of the Coldness: a feeling that comes sometimes when I'm
lying in bed, a black, empty feeling that knocks my breath
away and leaves me gasping as though I've just been
thrown in icy water. On nights like that - although it is wrong
and illegal - I think of those strange and terrible words, I
love you, and wonder what they would taste like in my
mouth, try to recall their lilting rhythm on my mother's
tongue. — Lauren Oliver

Then - in the dark - is when he sneaked inside her heart. When all of her defenses were down, and he'd asked her about her dreams and wishes. Things she'd never shared with anyone.
The one and only man she'd ever said "I love you" to. — Jennifer Kacey

One day, while he was idly reciting his verses to a captive audience, a scrap of paper, borne by the wind, landed on his lap. On it were written two words: "Layla" and "Majnun." As the crowd watched, Majnun tore the paper in half. The half on which was written "Layla" he crumpled into a ball and threw over his shoulder; the half with his own name he kept for himself.
"What does this mean?" someone asked.
"Do you not realize that one name is better than two?" Majnun replied. "If only you knew the reality of love, you would see that when you scratch a lover, you find his beloved."
"But why throw away Layla's name and not your own?" asked another.
Majnun glowered at the man. "The name is a shell and nothing more. It is what the shell hides that counts. I am the shell and Layla is the pearl; I am the veil and she is the face beneath it."
The crowd, though they knew not the meaning of his words, were amazed by the sweetness of his tongue. — Reza Aslan

Shall I tell you the secret of true love? her father once asked her. A friend of mine liked to tell me that women love flowers. He had many flirtations, but he never found a wife. Do you know why? Because women may love flowers, but only one woman loves the scent of gardenias in late summer that remind her of her grandmother's porch. Only one woman loves apple blossoms in a blue cup. Only one woman loves wild geraniums. That's Mama! Inej had cried. Yes, Mama loves wild geraniums because no other flower has quite the same color, and she claims that when she snaps the stem and puts a sprig behind her ear, the whole world smells like summer. Many boys will bring you flowers. But someday you'll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won't matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart. That — Leigh Bardugo

Do you know my best quality?" she asks.
"Of your many, I could not say, my darling."
"I see the best in people. I fall in love with people when I see a window into their beings, their shining moments. I've fallen in love with so many people but the trouble is I fall out of love so quickly too. I see the worst in them just as easily.
"Do you know I fell in love with you right away? That day at the Trotters' I had noted you because you were new, of course, and then you sat down at the piano, and you played a few notes, but you played them so well, with no self consciousness, and no idea that anyone might be listening. It was in that room off the garden and you were the only one there. I was passing through on the way to the ladies' room and saw you there. I fell in love with you right then, and so I slipped my drink all over myself so I could meet you." — Janice Y.K. Lee

You've been striking at her ghost, screaming, 'If you didn't want me to turn out like him, you should have stayed to stop me!'
As his throat worked convulsively, she covered his hands with hers. 'But she can't hear you. So all you're doing is trudging a path that isn't your own, growing more weary of it by the day, wanting more from your existence but believing you're cursed to having less. That is no sort of life for anyone ... '
'How can you have such faith in me?' he asked hoarsely. 'How can you believe in me when I've given you no reason?'
'You've given me plenty of reasons, but there's only one that matters. I love you, Oliver. I can't help myself. That is my reason. — Sabrina Jeffries

Tell me your deepest secret," she said softly ...
After a long moment, he spoke. "The only secret I've borne my entire life is that I love you." He gave her a slight smile. "It was the one thing I believed I'd go to the grave without voicing." His eyes were so full of light that their loveliness almost stopped her heart. — Sarah J. Maas

How can you have such faith in me?" he asked hoarsely. "How can you believe in me when I've given you no reason?"
"You've given me plenty of reasons, but there's only one that matters. I love you, Oliver. I can't help myself. That is my reason."
He began to shake, his eyes glistening with unshed tears.
"I love you," she repeated as she kissed his cheek. "I love you." She kissed the other cheek, now damp, though she wasn't sure whether from her tears or his. "I love you so much." She brushed his lips with hers.
He held her back to search her face. "God help you if that is a lie," he said in an aching voice. "Because those words have sealed your fate. I'll never let you go, now. — Sabrina Jeffries

Tessa reached out and took her hand. "Can I tell you something?"
"As long as it's not advice on chasing after a married man."
She squeezed Sara's hand. "I'm really in love with my husband."
Sara gave a careful "Okay."
"I know you think Lem is boring and too earnest and too self-righteous, and believe me, he can be all those
things, but a thousand times a day, I hear a song, or I think of something funny, or Daddy says one of his
stupid puns, and the first thing that comes into my head is 'I want to tell Lem about this.' And I know that
halfway around the world, he's thinking the same thing." She paused. "That's what love is, Sara, when there are so many things about you that you only want one person in the world to know. — Karin Slaughter

Sol! Take your daughter, your only daughter Rachel, Whom you love, and go to the world called Hyperion and offer her there as a burnt offering at one of the places of which I shall tell you." Sol hesitated and looked back to Rachel. The baby's eyes were deep and luminous as she looked up at her father. Sol felt the unspoken yes. Holding her tightly, he stepped forward into the darkness and raised his voice against the silence: "Listen! There will be no more offerings, neither child nor parent. There will be no more sacrifices for anyone other than our fellow human. The time of obedience and atonement is past. — Dan Simmons

In my judgment, the woman is the equal of the man. She has all the rights I have and one more, and that is the right to be protected. That is my doctrine. You are married; try and make the woman you love happy. Whoever marries simply for himself will make a mistake; but whoever loves a woman so well that he says 'I will make her happy,' makes no mistake. And so with the woman who says, 'I will make him happy.' There is only one way to be happy, and that is to make somebody else so. — Robert G. Ingersoll

She enetered the room and the entire crowd stopped, who was she? even in a million moons; you will never understand her, for she is to mysterious to presume and too wise to share her light to everyone. I wanted to love her, but i could tell, i wasnt the only one. — Nikki Rowe

One day I realized the perfect coincidence between the books I was trying to finish on gnosticism and moral behavior, and the attempts of my girlfriend at trying to stop me from finishing them with fights she would create, apparently, out of nowhere. I tried to convince her to pray and she laughed at my face. That's when I realized she was possessed by demons. Now, I'm just not sure if I still love her, if there's anyone there to love, or if I'm just being deceived. The only thing clear is that, wherever I go, I always have Satan on my tail. — Robin Sacredfire

Only a woman of pride, complexity and emotional tension is genuinely worth the act of love, and there are only two ways to get yourself one of them. Either you lie, and stain the relationship with your own sense of guile, or you accept the involvement, the emotional responsibility, the permanence she must by nature crave. I love you can be said only two ways.

Travis McGee, The Deep Blue Good-By, 1964 — Travis McGee

I use the chopsticks to outline the biggest heart possible. Then I use the Sweet'N Low packets to fill it in. I borrow some from two other tables when I run out.
When I'm done, I point to the heart on the table.
"This," I say, "is only about one ninety-millionth of how I feel about you."
She laughs.
"I'll try not to take it personally," she says.
"Take what personally?" I say. "You should take it very personally."
"The fact that you used artificial sweetener?"
I take a Sweet'N Low and fling it at her.
"Not everything is a symbol!" I shout. — David Levithan

Lady Linnea said,

"I don't think you understand the balance of relationships. They are give-and-take.Gemma is my best friend,Gemma has my loyalty because she's earned it, and I have Gemma's trust because I've earned it."

She tilted her head and studied Prince Toril with pursed lips.

"It takes work to build a lasting relationship, My Lord. You cannot expect someone to give you their everything just because."

"I don't think I understand," Prince Toril said.

Lady Linnea said, stopping their stroll down the hallway.

"Allow me to rephrase it. A friendship is filled only with as much love as YOU give. Gemma has my heart because I chose to give it to her. And my choice paid off, because there is no one in this horrible, tattered world that I trust more than Gemma Kielland. And so we are two best friends, walking together to achieve what neither of us could do alone. Do you understand it now? — K.M. Shea

You will never know the love I feel for her. How beautiful it is. How painful it can be. What it felt like when I first looked at her. And what it felt like when I thought I might lose her before I could even save her. You will never know true love until you experience true fear. And you will never feel those toward her, as I am the only one for her. She. Is. Mine. — Sarah Brianne

Dear Charles, she wrote.
After writing to express my appreciation for all the generosity of our friends, I would be remiss indeed if I did not include a missive to you. Out of all the new blessings in my new life, the one I thank God for the most is you. I thank you for writing to me through Genteel Correspondence, and for choosing me out of all the other women eager for adventure in the wild west.
I thank you for your kindness, and your gentleness toward me. Only very strong men can be gentle. I thank you for sharing your home and your life with me. I thank you for inventing delicious breakfasts. And chicory flavored coffee. And prayers that ease my mind and inspire my spirit and lift my heart. For your smile and the way you hold your hat in your hands. For the things you say and how you say them.
Did you know that I pray for you each day? I do. I pray for your safety and happiness.
Yours in Christ,
Rose — Jan Holly

Whever I came into the room, she'd light up, so happy to see me. No one ever in the course of my entire life was ever as happy to see me as she was. Looking back, now, I realize that you only ever need one person who lights up that way when you enter a room. One person is all it takes to give a kid confidence. — Adriana Trigiani

So ... Now that we got that over with, let's get back to love at first sight, Evan said.
Not infatuation at first sight ... Love. With a capital L, he clarified.
Love? Heeb asked, playfully pretending not to know the concept.
Yeah. The real thing. The conviction that if you had this one woman, all other women would become irrelevant. You'd never again be unhappy And you'd give up anything to have her and keep her.
You've experienced that?
Only once. And I haven't stopped thinking about it ever since.
Tell me more.
Sometimes I think that I still chase women just to forget about her. Because I know I can never have her. But I can't seem to forget about her, no matter what girl I'm chasing ... No one can possibly compare ...
Who is she?
Delilah, Evan said wistfully.
Delilah?, asked Heeb, intrigued
Delilah Nakova, Evan replied, with a hint of awe and reverence in his voice. — Zack Love

Her heart
is given him, with all its love and truth. She would joyfully die with him, or better than that, die for him. She knows he has failings, but she thinks they have grown up through his being like one cast away, for the want of something to trust in, and care for, and think well of. And she says, that lady rich and beautiful that I can never come near, 'Only put me in that empty place, only try how little I mind myself, only prove what a world of things I will do and bear for you, and I hope that you might even come to be so much better than you are, through me who am so much worse, and hardly worth the thinking of beside you. — Charles Dickens

Islam and Christianity promise eternal paradise to the faithful. And that is a powerful opiate, certainly, the hope of a better life to come. But there's a Sufi story that challenges the notion that people believe only because they need an opiate. Rabe'a al-Adiwiyah, a great woman saint of Sufism, was seem running through the streets of her hometown, Basra, carrying a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When someone asked her what she was doing, she answered, 'I am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to use this torch to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God for want of heaven of fear of hell, but because He is God. — John Green

I know how mirrors work. They're all in league with the cosmetics trade. They tell a woman lies. Drawing her gaze from one imagined flaw to another, until all she sees is a constellation of imperfections. If you could get outside yourself, borrow my eyes for just an instant ... There is only beauty. — Tessa Dare

Well, besides, I've arranged with the computer that anyone who doesn't look and sound like one of us will be killed if he - or she - tries to board the ship. I've taken the liberty of explaining that to the Port Commander. I told him very politely that I would love to turn off that particular facility out of deference to the reputation that the Sayshell City Spaceport holds for absolute integrity and security - throughout the Galaxy, I said - but the ship is a new model and I didn't know how to turn it off."
"He didn't believe that, surely."
"Of course not! But he had to pretend he did, as otherwise he would have had no choice but to be insulted. And since there would be nothing he could do about that, being insulted would only lead to humiliation. And since he didn't want that, the simplest path to follow was to believe what I said."
"And that's another example of how people are?"
"Yes. You'll get used to this. — Isaac Asimov

Do you know why I freaked out? Because I realized I'd fallen in love with my best friend. The very same person who had just told me she didn't love me. Call me an asshole for overreacting but that's what happened. You're not the only one who is hurting here, Perry. At least I didn't do it deliberately. — Karina Halle

I read, and underline, anything I can get my hands on, but I have a particular weakness for self-help books. I love these books, though I dislike the term "self-help." For one thing, it's not accurate. You're not helping yourself. The person who wrote the book is helping you. The only book that can accurately be called self-help is the one you write yourself. The other problem, of course, with self-help books is that they broadcast weakness, and thus invite judgement. That's why my wife insists I keep my sizable collection hidden in the basement, lest dinner guests suspect she is married to a self in need of help. — Eric Weiner