To Love And Be Loved Quotes & Sayings

The trouble is that so many people, most of them women, think they have to have a perfect body to be loved. But all it has to do is be capable of loving---and being loved. — Nina George

You don't need to be seeing someone to be in love with her. You can have lost touch with her, she can have hurt you, even inexplicably. If you ever felt that you really knew her and that it was what you knew that you loved, and if you remember what it was you once knew, why is it so crazy to retain that love still? — Elliot Perlman

Have we ever thought to consider that the need to be loved grows because of its absence, but that love also grows because of its presence? And does this not speak to the power of love? — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Really to care is to care as you would for a tree or a plant, watering it, studying its needs, the best soil for it, looking after it with gentleness and tenderness - but when you prepare your children to fit into society you are preparing them to be killed. If you loved your children you would have no war — Jiddu Krishnamurti

The impression is that love is something that happens to you like magic. That love is something others do for you, but that you cannot do for yourself. Love is not something you wait for. Love doesn't just happen. Love is something you do. When you want love, give love. Moment to moment, you make the choice whether to give love and be loved. — Jennifer James

We are born ready to love and be loved. It is our birthright. — Sharon Salzberg

He holds my gaze, and the look in his eyes is a love letter in itself. When he speaks, his voice is rough. "Will you marry me, Cate?"
I go still, the question hanging in the air. I have never felt more accepted 'for the girl I am, not the girl I want to be' never more loved and respected than I am in this moment. It's a choice, and it's mine to make.
"Yes," I breathe.
Finn slides the simple gold band onto my ring finger. I tilt it, and the ruby sparkles, catching the sunlight. He leans down and brushes his lips against mine, sealing the promise. 'I can't wait to make you my wife.'
'Cate Belastra.' I try it out and despite the solemnity of the moment, despite knowing what this will cost him, I can't help smiling. — Jessica Spotswood

My old mind hadn't been capable of holding this much love. My old heart had not been strong enough to bear it. Maybe this was the part of me that I'd brought forward to be intensified in my new life. Like Carlisle's compassion and Esme's devotion. I would probably never be able to do anything interesting or special like Edward, Alice, and Jasper could do. Maybe I would just love Edward more than anyone in the history of the world had ever loved anyone else. I could live with that. — Stephenie Meyer

Well, life isn't cheap. It's the greatest mystery of any millennium, and television needs to do all it can to broadcast that ... to show and tell what the good in life is all about.
But how do we make goodness attractive? By doing whatever we can do to bring courage to those whose lives move near our own
by treating our 'neighbor' at least as well as we treat ourselves and allowing that to inform everything that we produce.
Who in your life has been such a servant to you? Who has helped you love the good that grows within you? Let's just take ten seconds to think of some of those people who have loved us and wanted what was best for us in life, those who have encouraged us to become who we are tonight - just ten seconds of silence.
No matter where they are, either here or in heaven, imagine how pleased those people must be to know that you thought of them right now. — Fred Rogers

Now my wandering days are over. It will be bliss to settle down. Bliss. There's a word, now. Bliss to love and to be loved. — Betty Smith

Love is putting another person before yourself. Love means doing what's best for the other person, no matter what it means for you. Love is always there. Time can only strengthen love. You can only love someone else if they allow you to and it applies to yourself. To be loved, you must place trust in another person. — Lindsay Paige

When Hamish and I loved each other for a whole year without making love, I did not realize that I had set the mould of my whole life. One could find endless reasons for our abstinence
fear, virtue, ignorance, perversion
but the fact remains that the Hamish pattern was to be endlessly repeated, and with increasing velocity and lack of depth, so that eventually the idea of love ended in me almost the day that it began. Nothing succeeds, they say, life success, and certainly nothing fails like failure. I was successful in my work, so I suppose other successes were too much to hope for. — Margaret Drabble

Everything I thought I knew about what it meant to be a man was stripped away. What remained was what it meant to be a man who loved a woman as much as I did. To be a human being experiencing this life in all its ugliness, its beauty, its pain and hate; good and evil; love and death. — Emma Scott

The earth will never be the same again
Rock, water, tree, iron, share this greif
As distant stars participate in the pain.
A candle snuffed, a falling star or leaf,
A dolphin death, O this particular loss
A Heaven-mourned; for if no angel cried
If this small one was tossed away as dross,
The very galaxies would have lied.
How shall we sing our love's song now
In this strange land where all are born to die?
Each tree and leaf and star show how
The universe is part of this one cry,
Every life is noted and is cherished,
and nothing loved is ever lost or perished. — Madeleine L'Engle

Who is Jesus to me? Jesus is the Word made Flesh. Jesus is the Bread of Life. Jesus is the Victim offered for our sins on the cross. Jesus is the sacrifice offered at holy Mass for the sins of the world and for mine. Jesus is the Word - to be spoken. Jesus is the Truth - to be told. Jesus is the Way - to be walked. Jesus is the Light - to be lit. Jesus is the Life - to be lived. Jesus is the Love - to be loved — Mother Teresa

I became aware that our love was doomed; love had turned into a love affair with a beginning and an end. I could name the very moment when it had begun, and one day I knew I should be able to name the final hour. When she left the house I couldn't settle to work. I would reconstruct what we had said to each other; I would fan myself into anger or remorse. And all the time I knew I was forcing the pace. I was pushing, pushing the only thing I loved out of my life. As long as I could make believe that love lasted I was happy; I think I was even good to live with, and so love did last. But if love had to die, I wanted it to die quickly. It was as though our love were a small creature caught in a trap and bleeding to death; I had to shut my eyes and wring its neck. — Graham Greene

Love is the movement within life that carries us, that enables us, that causes us to break out of what Alan Watts calls the "skin-encapsulated ego." Without love, we are self-centered, but love enables us to move the center of our lives outside our ego. Therefore it expands our lives and, needless to say, enriches it. Any human being would give anything to love or be loved. When it really happens, it is like heaven on earth. — Huston Smith

Some people love you not because you deserve to be loved.
They pretend to love you because they are benefiting.
They are basically PARASITES, and you are unfortunately their HOST. — Nomthandazo Tsembeni

To seek enlightenment, intellectual or spiritual; to do good; to love and be loved; to create and to teach: these are the highest purposes of humankind. If there is meaning in life, it lies here. — George Monbiot

I know how strong you are, but even the strongest sword needs a steady hand in battle. I swore to stand by your side, through all life's challenges, and I meant it. I don't care what me father, or anyone else, thinks. I will always be there for you when you need me. I love you, Trevelyan. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

What I could tell the boy was, the moment we are born appears to be the very same moment we forget we are loved. Now isn't this awkward? Shouldn't the two things dovetail, love and memory? Shouldn't a feeling that powerful be carved on a tree so no one can ignore its message? To come so far to be in this world only to forget something all-important - what kind of a journey is that? I'll bet that 90 percent of the love that surrounds us is dismissed or discounted - the cup of tea a friend makes, the letter from a faraway auntie. The fact that no one feels loved enough merely proves my point. — Laurie Fox

Newt had said I loved Ivy more than the church. I wasn't going to deny it, but there were all kinds of love, and how shallow would I be if my anchor to reality was a hunk of real estate? It was the people who were there that made it mean something. — Kim Harrison

During the spring break I read a book called Everlasting. It was a really great book to read. It was about how a girl named Ivy and a boy named Triston were madly in loved but they couldn't be together. Triston had died but he came back to life as another person. But, the problem was that the person that he become was accused as a murderer. So he was being chased. But, even though he was being chased they figured things out and they were together forever. I chose to read this book because when I first started reading it i really liked it. I liked this book a lot because it talked about romance and how they didn't give up. They overcame the difficulties that came before them. What I didn't really like about this book is that many people came in between the love that Ivy and Triston had. — Elizabeth Chandler

For a moment in time, a man knew me for who I was and, without reservation, loved me for who I was. How can I now live knowing no one will ever see me again in such a perfect light? Hear me as I wish to be heard? Love me as [he] loved me? — Robin Maxwell

I think I'd rather be liked than loved.
It just seems as if more criticism and chastening is shown to those we love, while kind manners and compassion are reserved for those we simply like.
So, I hope you like me. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Each person is sacred, no matter what his or her culture, religion, handicap, or fragility. Each person is created in God's image; each one has a heart, a capacity to love and to be loved. — Jean Vanier

But he also knew that there is an inflationary aspect to love, and that should his mother, or Rose, or any of those who loved him find out about each other, they would not be able to help but feel of lesser value. He knew that I love you also means, I love you more than anyone loves you, or has loved you, or will live you, and also, I love you in a way that no one loves you, or has loved you, or will love you,and also, I love you in a way that I love no one else, and never have loved anyone else, and never will love anyone else. He knew that it is, by love's definition, impossible to love two people. — Jonathan Safran Foer

It happens the world over - we love ourselves more than we do the one we say we love. We all want to be Number One, we've got to be Number One or nothing! We can't see that we could make ourselves loved and needed in the Number Two, or Three, or Four spot. No sir, we've got to be Number One, and if we can't make it, we'll rip and tear at the loved one till we've ruined every smidgin of love that was ever there. — Irene Hunt

Love is real, real is love, Love is feeling, feeling love, Love is wanting to be loved. Love is touch, touch is love, Love is reaching, reaching love, Love is asking to be loved. Love is you, You and me, Love is knowing, We can be. Love is free, free is love, Love is living, living love, Love is needing to be loved. — John Lennon

To be loved, feelings must be rationed. To love, the doors of hysteria, fantasy, and madness may be flung open. — Anton Szandor LaVey

You are alive tonight for a reason. You were created to love and to be loved. You were not meant to be alone. You are not alone. You were meant to do life with other people. You need people who know you. You need to know people. Your voice matters. We are certainly strong. But we are also certainly fragile. — Jamie Tworkowski

Name one hero who was happy."
I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back.
"You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward.
"I can't."
"I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret."
"Tell me." I loved it when he was like this.
"I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the reason. Swear it."
"I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.
"I swear it," he echoed.
We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned.
"I feel like I could eat the world raw. — Madeline Miller

I have feelings too. I am still human. All I want is to be loved, for myself and for my talent. — Marilyn Monroe

Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love. — Adam Smith

Everyone would fear her again. And love her, of course. Mrs Pincent needed to be loved as much as wanted to be feared-to her they were two sides of the same coin. Both gave her total control. — Gemma Malley

Everybody's looking for love, and you want to love somebody and be loved in return. — Jill Scott

I grabbed a robe and a fireplace poker and headed down the stairs at a snail's pace. I was sure I loved him, but I wasn't prepared to be brutally murdered to save a man of his size. He was on his own. Unless of course, it was a mob of uncompromising zombies. Then I might have attempted to fight beside him. I shook my head, nearly laughing at this point. — Holly Hood

Austin stood. "All right, I will." He walked to the door and stopped, his hand on the latch. He gazed back over his shoulder. "That woman you love ... Do I know her?"
Houston forced himself to meet his brother's gaze. The boy only knew one woman, if he didn't count the whores in Dusty Flats. "Yeah, you do."
"She never left your side, not for one minute."
"She should have."
"Well, I'm not learned in these matters, but I'd like to think if a woman ever loved me as much as that one loves you ... I'd crawl through hell to be by her side. — Lorraine Heath

Walker and Timothy sat quietly for a very long time. "Why do so many people make it so hard for anyone to help them or to love them?" Walker asked finally.
Timothy chuckled. "Ah, Walker - if I could explain all of humanity's foibles, I'd be a rich man indeed, at least as far as money goes. I believe people are like that because of fear. They fear being loved because they fear that if they're loved, they'll have to love back. And if they love back, they may get hurt. And many people aren't ready to put their hearts on the line like that. Mostly because they don't have anything to fall back on. It's quite a shame, really, because they hurt themselves by trying to avoid getting hurt. But we have to be willing to die many times if we're ever going to get on with this business of living. — Tom Walsh

As they left the restaurant and mounted the stairs he looped an arm around her shoulders and hugged her to him, willing her to love him as much as he loved her. Even a fraction of the amount would be enough. — Emily Arden

I hadn't understood funeral pyres before, but now I do. It's ghastly to burn someone you love but watching the smoke going into the sky, I think that's rather beautiful now. And I wish Tess could be up in the sky. Somewhere with color and light and air. — Rosamund Lupton

I loved him because I knew him. Because I'd seen the man he truly was inside, and it never failed to amaze me. I loved him for his heart and his strength. For his endless compassion and his unbreakable spirit even in the face of everything he'd been trough. I loved him because he was the person I wanted to be, and I was a better person just trough the privilege of knowing him. — Julianna Scott

We were designed to love and to be loved, to reach our dreams to unleash our potentials but not live in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. — Auliq Ice

So this is supposed to be the how, and when, and why, and what or reading - about the way that, when reading is going well, one book leads to another and to another, a paper trail of theme and meaning; and how, when it's going badly, when books don't stick or take, when your mood and the mood of the book are fighting like cats, you'd rather do anything but attempt the next paragraph, or reread the last one for the tenth time. "We talked about books," says a character in Charles Baxter's wonderful Feast of Love, "how boring they were to read, but how you loved them anyway. Anyone who hasn't felt like that isn't owning up. — Nick Hornby

I will be forever grateful for your presence in my life. I am a much better human being because of you. The experience of loving you, living with you, was the greatest journey of my life thus far. You showed me an alternative to the man I was becoming.
I know I still have much to learn, much to accomplish, and I know my future is bright. I owe you the confidence I now have in myself. This is the confidence that could only come from the knowledge that a woman of your caliber loved me for who I am; for what you saw in me.
You are a great woman and I mean that in the strongest sense of the phrase. You feel deeply, think deeply, and live deeply. I admire so much about you. Regardless of whether our paths cross again, know that I am actively wishing you success and happiness. I pray that you will once again be part of my life. But if left with just the experience we've shared, I know my life was better because of it. — Emma Forrest

I trusted her not to be careless with my heart or with my feelings. I trusted her to understand and to accept what might be broken or imperfect. In some dusty corner there may be things I tossed away, forgotten, things that might once have shamed me. I trusted her with those things too. I trusted her to accept me as she found me and to love me as I was, as I loved her. — Catherine M. Wilson

She wanted me to love her... and stranger still, i wanted to love and be loved by her. Death had become romantic again. — J.D. Clair

I loved her. I did not know what state of mind I would be in when I got where I was going and I was most worried that in the process I might forget her. I did not ever want to forget her! I held the image of her in my mind so strongly and the eternal love for her so deep within my heart that it could never ever be erased, no matter what. My love for her was stronger than anything that could happen to me. — Kate McGahan

And when someone grows up knowing so little of what real love feels like, whether from family, or friends, or the love of a companion, that person starts to believe that they weren't meant to be loved, that good things will never happen to them. They start to believe that whenever something good does happen, it's inevitable that something bad will come along to replace it. — J.A. Redmerski

I am the woman I grew to be partly in spite of my mother, and partly because of the extraordinary love of her best friends, and my own best friends' mothers, and from surrogates, many of whom were not women at all but gay men. I have loved them my entire life, even after their passing. — Anne Lamott

Sting told me if I love somebody I should set them free.
I doubt Sting ever loved anyone with wings. If he did he might rethink such a stupid sentiment.
I suppose the point is to wait for your love to come back to you voluntarily.
I wonder if there's a difference between setting something free and letting it go?
I probably did it wrong.
I should stop taking advice from my radio.
I worry that you're lost.
I keep a heart-shaped cage unlocked for you, out on the street where it can easily be seen.
So if one day you return at least you'll have a place to stay. — Erin Morgenstern

Even if I tried to tell myself that I had given him nothing, that the children were mostly mine, that they had remained within the radius of my body, subject to my care, still I couldn't avoid thinking what aspects of his nature inevitably lay hidden in them. [ ... ] How much of him would I be forced to love forever, without even realizing it, simply by virtue of the fact that I loved them? What a complex foamy mixture a couple is. Even if the relationship shatters and ends, it continues to act in secret pathways, it doesn't die, it doesn't want to die. — Elena Ferrante

But everyone had to die, and Father had given his life for the sake of a better world. If more Germans had had his courage the Nazis would not have triumphed. She wanted to do all the things he had done: to raise her children well, to make a difference to her country's politics, to love and be loved. Most of all, when she died, she wanted her children to be able to say, as she said of her father, that her life had meant something, and that the world was a better place for it. — Ken Follett

Religion has nothing to do with compassion; it is our love for God that is the main thing because we have all been created for the sole purpose to love and be loved. — Mother Teresa

The most desired gift of love is not diamonds or roses or chocolate. It is focused attention. Love concentrates so intently on another that you forget yourself at that moment. Attention says, "I value you enough to give you my most precious asset - my time." Whenever you give your time, you are making a sacrifice, and sacrifice is the essence of love. Jesus modeled this: "Be full of love for others, following the example of Christ who loved you and gave Himself to God as a sacrifice to take away your sins" (Ephesians 5:2, LB). — Rick Warren

Give me this moment," Kahl said to me. I glanced up at him and couldn't fathom the depths of his taunting amber irises.
"You have it."
"Be my angel ... Leave with me," he whispered. In that moment, when thoughts of the boy I loved left me and fissures of pure bliss consumed me, I knew I was in trouble. — Nadege Richards

Arthur,' continued I, relaxing my hold of his arm, 'you don't love me half as much as I do you; and yet, if you loved me far less than you do, I would not complain, provided you loved your Maker more. I should rejoice to see you at any time so deeply absorbed in your devotions that you had not a single thought to spare for me. But, indeed, I should lose nothing by the change, for the more you loved your God the more deep and pure and true would be your love to me. — Anne Bronte

Sisterhood was about shared experiences, trust, knowing you had people who would be there for you and would listen to you no matter what, and who could always tell if there was something wrong. They were the ones who, with a single look, knew if you were about to burst into giggles or into tears and why, and who knew when you needed to get out of the house for a midnight trip to In-N-Out Burger to gorge on a milkshake and animal-style fries. They were the ones you could be raging angry with one moment, and completely forgive ten minutes later. She would always be there for her sisters, and they would always be there for her, because they loved each other no matter what. — Michelle Madow

Average human nature is very coarse, and its ideals must necessarily be average. The world never loved perfect poise. What the world does love is commonly absence of poise, for it has to be amused. — Henry Adams

You deserved to be loved. And I hope you get to marry for love and not a number. — Kiera Cass

I love the golf courses because it brought the best out of me. It made me prepare, made me work at it, made me do the things I needed to do to be better, and that's what I loved about USGA events. If you couldn't handle it, then you got beat, and that's OK. — Jack Nicklaus

In the struggle to remain a complete person and to love from her fullness instead of her inadequacy a woman may appear hard. She may feel her early conditioning tugging her in the direction of surrender, but she ought to remember that she was originally loved for herself; she ought to hang on to herself and not find herself nagging, helpless, irritable and trapped. Perhaps I am not old enough yet to promise that the self-reliant woman is always loved, but she cannot be lonely as long as there are people in the world who need her joy and her strength, but certainly in my experience it has always been so. Lovers who are free to go when they are restless always come back; lovers who are free to change remain interesting. The bitter animosity and obscenity of divorce is unknown where individuals have not become Siamese twins. A lover who comes to your bed of his own accord is more likely to sleep with his arms around you all night than a lover who has nowhere else to sleep. — Germaine Greer

To wake, and sleep, and know that one is loved; to hear, as I hear now, the whisper of a footfall; to feel the touch of hands; these things, above all else, are to be desired. I count myself fortunate, in that, for a little while, I have known them. — Keith Roberts

We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, be loved, and to belong. When those needs are not met, we don't function as were meant to be. We break. We fall apart. We numb. We ache ... The absence of love and belonging will always lead to suffering. — Brene Brown

And I had loved her, I had at least once in my life been capable of that, able to escape my self long enough to love. Suddenly, the unacknowledged sorrows and blunders of my life surged up in me all at once. I thought I would be sick. I gasped, put my hand over my mouth until tears began collecting on my fingers. I took my hand away and looked at it as if I had just discovered I was bleeding. — Wayne Johnston

I always got the feeling with John Paul that if he could have narrowed down the people he met and blessed those he loved the most, they would not be cardinals, princes, or congressman, but nuns from obscure convents and Down syndrome children, especially the latter. Because they have suffered, and because in some serious and amazing way the love of God seems more immediately available to them. Everyone else gets themselves tied up in ambition and ideas and bustle, all the great distractions, but the modest and unwell are so often unusually open to this message: God loves us, his love is all around us, he made us to love him and be happy — Peggy Noonan

Brooks stuck his hands in his pockets and examined his shoes. It would be nice to be known fully and still loved, but what if it was one or the other? What if by the time someone got to know you, the person didn't love you anymore? And when could you be sure the person really knew you? Two years? Four? It was probably better to pull back while the going was good, rather than to risk losing a marriage on the gamble of someone's still liking the real you, the forty-years-of-marriage you. Yes, definitely better to leave good things alone. Things such as friendship.
"You look like someone ran over your dog." Blanche nudged him with her elbow. — Mary Jane Hathaway

God, why do You love me?"
BECAUSE I AM LOVE.
"God, when do You love me?"
ALWAYS.
"How do You love me?"
WITH GRACE, PATIENCE, AND FORGIVENESS.
"God, am I good enough for You?"
MY PRECIOUS CHILD, YOU DON'T NEED TO BE.
"Why?"
BECAUSE I LOVE YOU SO MUCH THAT I GAVE MY ONLY SON, AND HE TOOK UPON HIS SHOULDERS THE AFFLICTIONS AND SINS OF THIS WORLD.
"God, when will I get to see You?"
AFTER YOU CHOOSE TO BELIEVE IN ME.
"Then I will know You here, and in Heaven?"
YES, THEN YOU WILL KNOW ME HERE, AND IN HEAVEN.
"I love you, God."
He always replies,
I LOVED YOU YESTERDAY,
I LOVE YOU TODAY,
AND I WILL LOVE YOU TOMORROW.
~ excerpt from "Halo Found Hope" Chapter 21, HOPE FOUND — Helo Matzelle

Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not 'How am I to find God?' but 'How am I to let myself be found by him?' The question is not 'How am I to love God?' but 'How am I to let myself be loved by God?' — Henri Nouwen

If someone tells you they love turkey smothered with cranberry sauce, that they love it more than anything else in the world, you might spend the day roasting that someone a turkey and smothering it with cranberry sauce. If that same someone then takes one little bite and says, 'That'll be all, thank you,' you'll likely go red in the face and hurl both these turkeys our the nearest window because clearly, this person never loved turkey smothered with cranberry sauce in the first place.
Little bites are never enough when you love something. When you love something, you want it all. That's how it works. And that's how it was for Archer. Archer didn't want a little taste of adventure with a side of leftover discoveries. Archer wanted the whole turkey and he wanted it stuffed with enough salts and spices to turn his taste buds into sparklers. — Nicholas Gannon

He wants to be known deep down, abysmally deep down, before he is capable of being loved at all; he dares to let himself be fathomed. He feels that his beloved is fully in his possession only when she no longer deceives herself about him, when she loves him just as much for his devilry and hidden insatiability as for his graciousness, patience, and spirituality. — Friedrich Nietzsche

To love and be loved is a wonder. — Peggy Sue Wells

We've been told prettiness will somehow make us better - and more loved. Do we really want to bear the mark of physical beauty? Or do we just want to be loved? — Kate Wicker

If I didn't say it, how do you know?" "When you touch me, when you look at me, when you hold me, I feel it." She looked up at him, eyes drenched. "And I couldn't love you this much without you loving me back. I couldn't know how right it is to be with you if I didn't know you loved me. — Nora Roberts

But when you kiss me there's a spark, and I can't remember I'm only food to be consumed like an apple and not loved like a woman. — Phar West Nagle

Love is the greatest medicine. I ask to be healing medicine for others. I ask my heart to expand its boundaries and to love others as they wish to be loved. I ask my heart to expand its boundaries and open to my being loved as I wish to be loved. — Julia Cameron

The greatest thing you'll learn is just to love and be loved in return - Eden Ahbez — Karla M. Nashar

A lame creature, a cripple like myself, has no right to love. How should I, broken, shattered being that I am, be anything but a burden to you, when to myself I am an object of disgust, of loathing. A creature such as I, I know, has no right to love, and certainly no right to be loved. It is for such a creature to creep away into a corner and die and cease to make other people's lives a burden with her presence. — Stefan Zweig

I didn't have that intense ambition to be a musician or an actress. I just enjoyed it. And by enjoying it, because I loved it, it enabled me to get better at what I was doing, because there was a love behind it. — Lauryn Hill

And isn't that the tragedy of love, it's utter and complete deceit, that you can only be true in it, that you only wish to reveal your full truth to the one you love, with no frills and no lies, that you want to be loved as you are? That you wish to be loved for your truth, and not your ability to hide it? — Omair Ahmad

The good news is that God's "I love you" is proclaimed specifically to those who don't deserve it. In other words, we don't need a makeover to be loved by God. God's love is not fake or forced; it is an "I love you" that says, "I forgive you." God's "I love you" is based on the deserving of another. "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8). On the cross, Christ's righteousness was given to us and our sin was laid upon Him. God's "I love you," aimed at His perfect Son, is ours forever. — Tullian Tchividjian

It's a known fact that in life, you can't have everything. In my heart I knew I loved them both, as much as possible to love two people at the same time. Conrad and I were linked, we would always be linked. That wasn't something I could do away with. I knew that now - that love wasn't something you could erase, no matter how hard you tried. — Jenny Han

Yes, it's true that I fell in love with someone and that he died, along with the two other people I loved best in this world. That has been the main thing to know about me, the only thing about me for a very long time, although I didn't know it myself. But there must be more to know. There will be more. — E. Lockhart

At our age the imagination
across the sorry facts
lifts us
to make roses
stand before thorns.
Sure
love is cruel
and selfish
and totally obtuse -
at least, blinded by the light,
young love is.
But we are older,
I to love
and you to be loved,
we have,
no matter how,
by our wills survived
to keep
the jeweled prize
always
at our finger tips.
We will it so
and so it is
past all accident. — William Carlos Williams

Love is to love and be loved — Miguel Angel Saez Gutierrez

She did not want wealth or fame or power, but simply to be loved, to be cherished, to feel safe, cared for, and protected. She wanted someone to be kind to her and love her. — Melanie Dickerson

What the Bible does not mention, but what must be true is that, years later, Lazarus still died. The people Jesus healed were inevitably sick again at some point in their lives. The people Jesus fed miraculously were hungry again a few days later. More important than the very obvious might and power shown by Jesus' miracles is His love. He loved these people enough to do everything in His power to "make it better." He entered into their suffering and loved them right there. — Katie J. Davis

Before I could reply, he had picked me up, literally swept me off my feet, and kissed me. And afterwards, when I tried to speak, he silenced me in much the same manner. It was a shock (but not at all distasteful) to be so caught up. Later - when he at last set me down - he handled me more gently. He took of my glasses and told me that he loved me. — Jennifer Paynter

At this time, we should renew our faith in God. We celebrate the hour in which God came to man. It is fitting that we should turn to Him ... But there are many others who are away from their homes and their loved ones on this day. Thousands of our boys are on the cold and dreary battlefield of Korea. But all of us, at home, at war, wherever we may be, are within reach of God's love and power. We can all pray. We should all pray. — Harry S. Truman

You've been in love with someone for a decade - someone who barely knows you're alive. You've done everything, tried everything to make this person see that you're a valuable, estimable person, and that your love is worth something. Then one day you open the paper and glance at the Personals column, and there you see that your loved one has placed an ad ... seeking someone worthwhile to love and be loved by. — Daniel Quinn

He loved me, but I also think he was infatuated with somebody in me I wasn't so crazy about. If Nate was the one who saw Kate Pierson underneath my grubby disaffect when we met, David tried to strip away all of Kate's lovely lashes and wigs and iridescent outfits to reveal what he was confident was the mousy, wide-eyed ragamuffin little girl that he wanted to love me as, and who he wanted me to be. — Julie Klausner

You've taught me that we're all needed, even those who sometimes think we're worthless, plain and dull. If we love and allow ourselves to be loved ... well, a person who loves is the most precious thing in the world, worth all the fortunes that ever were. That's what you've taught me, fur face,and because of you I'll never be the same. — Dean Koontz

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

I think I would like to write a book on love because one cannot speak of it too much. A Small Study on Love. A Survey of Love. An Investigation of Love. A Compendium on Love. An Omnibus on Love. The Forms of Love. An Opus on Love. Portraits of Love. To Love and to Be Loved. I see a young woman striding down the street and I wonder if she is in a hurry to love. I wonder if there will ever come a day when people can exchange hearts. — Meia Geddes

More and more, for the stupid little kid, that was the idea . . .
That if enough people looked at you, you'd never need anybody's attention ever again.
That if someday you were caught, exposed, and revealed enough, then you'd never be able to hide again. There'd be no difference between your public and your private lives.
That if you could acquire enough, accomplish enough, you'd never want to own or do another thing.
That if you could eat or sleep enough, you'd never need more.
That if enough people loved you, you'd stop needing love.
That you could ever be smart enough.
That you could someday get enough sex.
These all became the little boy's new goals. The illusions he'd have for the rest of his life. These were all the promises he saw in the fat man's smile — Chuck Palahniuk

I didn't know for sure whether Miss Sarah's feelings came from love or guilt. I didn't know whether mine came from love or a need to be safe. She loved me and pitied me. And I loved her and used her. It never was a simple thing. — Sue Monk Kidd

But if we abide in Him and He abides in us, we will bear much fruit in oneness with other believers. He will give us the glory to come into unity. And when we receive love from God, we will be able to love others as He loves us. This twofold unity - with the triune God and with each other - is the key to evangelism. Indeed, our intimacy with God has everything to do with His great harvest. Jesus said, "May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me" (John 17:23, emphasis mine). It is through our oneness with God and His people that His glory is revealed through us, leading the world to believe in Him. — Che Ahn

It's amazing how close you are to your essential self as a kid, he thought, and how far from it you drift the more you strive to be loved. — Nina George

Why else do we live, except to be loved and remembered by those we love? — Tom Spanbauer

There is a certain age when a woman must be beautiful to be loved, and then there comes a time when she must be loved to be beautiful. — Francoise Sagan