Unrequited Quotes & Sayings

To-day Massachusetts; and the whole of the American republic, from the border of Maine to the Pacific slopes, and from the Lakes to the Gulf, stand upon the immutable and everlasting principles of equal and exact justice. The days of unrequited labor are numbered with the past. Fugitive slave laws are only remembered as relics of that barbarism which John Wesley pronounced "the sum of all villainies," and whose knowledge of its blighting effects was matured by his travels in Georgia and the Carolinas. — Horace Mann

He silenced the thought, already itching to get inside her, his tongue, or his fingers, or his cock. After all these years of wanting, he would gladly accept whatever access to her body she gave him. He just wanted in. — Amber Belldene

I know I only want him,' she said between sobs, the syllables all wrong, 'because he doesn't want me. How is that even possible?'

'It's normal to want what we can't have,' I said soothingly.

'No, I mean how can he not want me? — Olivia Sudjic

By the Angel, Bridget's depressing," said Henry, setting down his newspaper directly on his plate and causing the edge to soak through with egg yolk. Charlotte opened her mouth as if to object, and closed it again. "It's all heartbreak, death and unrequited love."
"Well, that is what most songs are about," said Will. "Requited love is nice, but it doesn't make much of a ballad. — Cassandra Clare

I never thought people actually woke up the way I did that morning. I always figured it was hyperbole and massive overcompensation to say that you woke up grinning, woke up in a state of contentment and excitement for the smallest things. Even while I was in love formerly, it seemed more like a comfortable thing rather than a giddy, overwhelming happiness. Realize, then, that I had never been joined in a mutual state of infatuation with someone else. My infatuations tended to be unrequited, accompanied by a sense of muted sadness. I sat up at 7:00a.m. without even waiting for the alarm, and kept still there, smiling, looking at nothing and going over yesterday's conversations, the fevered symphony of emotion ringing forever in my ears.
I fell back and actually laughed to myself, reaching for my glasses to slide them on as I stretched out my back comfortably in a lazy, half-waking state.
You are in love. — Vee Hoffman

Eventually, I spent so much time in the friend zone
that I grew to think of it as some kind
of magical home away from home, some lush forest
filled with unicorns and elves and puppies
none of whom were getting laid. — Dylan Garity

Guys are totally stupid when it comes to unrequited love. We females pine away and keep our thighs closed for the most part when we love someone we can't have. Guys swing their shit around at anything that has a hole, trying to forget the one they want. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Imagine that you yourself are building the edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy in the finale, of giving them peace and rest at last, but for that you must inevitably and unavoidably torture just one tiny creature, that same child who was beating her chest with her little fist, and raise your edifice on the foundation of her unrequited tears
would you agree to be the architect on such conditions? — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

She had a destiny, and it was wonderful, every girl's dream. Like Sleeping Beauty, awoken from a deep sleep by a charming vampire, Lena would have her very own fairy tale. — Amber Belldene

Rebellion? I don't like hearing such a word from you," Ivan said with feeling. "One cannot live by rebellion, and I want to live. Tell me straight out, I call on you
answer me: imagine that you yourself are building the edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy in the finale, of giving them peace and rest at last, but for that you must inevitably and unavoidably torture just one tiny creature, that same child who was beating her chest with her little fist, and raise your edifice on the foundation of her unrequited tears
would you agree to be the architect on such conditions? Tell me the truth."
"No, I would not agree," Alyosha said softly.
"And can you admit the idea that the people for whom you are building would agree to accept their happiness on the unjustified blood of a tortured child, and having accepted it, to remain forever happy?"
"No, I cannot admit it. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Anna and I did not make love. I don't remember why. Maybe we didn't need to. She might have been afraid, although I doubt she was afraid of much. She'd been a midwife before she opened a studio; she'd held life in her hands, like a wire from a galvanic cell. Maybe death was too strong in me for an act so inspirited with life. Although I sometimes think that death is what gives lovemaking its desperate and terrible joy. — Norman Lock

Unrequited affection is very painful for the lover, but it can have unexpected, creative consequences. — Damon Galgut

She hated that she was still so desperate for a glimpse of him, but it had been this way for years. — Julia Quinn

You can't maintain top-dog status with any unrequited feelings out there. — A.D. Aliwat

What is the meaning of La Belle Dame Sans Merci? - have you never been enthralled? enchantment that is unrequited desolates the soul ... — John Geddes

With every step I took away from her, the movement at my heart and between my legs grew more defined: I felt like a ventriloquist, locking his protesting dolls in to a trunk. — Sarah Waters

I am in no doubt that if you use the term 'luv' in a letter or text message then you are incapable of truly understanding the emotion. Artists have not pored over heartache and unrequited sentimentality for years so that our generation could decide that four letters is simply one too many to express how we feel. — Jon Richardson

Christ," he said to the tiny reflection of himself that floated along the surface of his coffee,
"You have become quite the maudlin sop, haven't you? Laughing softly, he rubbed a hand over his face.
Step one on the road back to sanity, stop talking to yourself. — Kristen Callihan

Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O any thing, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this. — William Shakespeare

They laughed at him, but they didn't know, they didn't know about all the nice things he had. No one knew. No one. Only someday he'd see somebody different, somebody to give his things to, somebody who would give him all their things. Yes. He'd like that. He'd know her when he saw her.
He'd know just what to say. — George R R Martin

You love him because this is what you do. Over and over again. You knit yourself right up into these men's lives, these men who will never ever be able to love you back, and then you wonder like a crazy person why you aren't the chosen one at the end. You have to stop doing this ... — Collier Lumpkin

I love her passionately with a morbid intensity; madly as one can only love a woman who never responds to our love with anything but an eternally uniform, eternally calm, stony smile. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Contained within the breadth of my heart where you belong unto me and I unto you. — Truth Devour

Gallons of ink and miles of typewriter ribbon expended on the misery of the unrequited lover; not a word about the utter tedium of the unrequiting. — Tom Stoppard

I'm a critic. I write essays about works of art. It's like being a eunuch in the seraglio, but unrequited love is the sweetest, and I have the proper distance. I can compress the qualities of beauty I've been trained to see, store them up, and bring them out at will, rapid-fire, in the combinations I want. — Mark Helprin

Let her remain where she is. A constellation away. — Eric Gamalinda

The biggest curse in life is not loosing your love, but not being loved by someone you love. — Kiran Joshi

My heart! Ohhh my poor heart
Its bruised...its scarred and its full of pain.... But its still in love with you! — Kiran Joshi

I was only trying to survive, she mumbled, as if it made any difference. It was no excuse to use against someone who had truly been trying to survive, and Damian had done so quite successfully since 1450. What right had she to say that it was hard? — Elaine White

If you are ready to cry..to feel the pain..to take the risk? You are ready for love — Kiran Joshi

I loved her [Gilberte]; I was sorry not to have had the time and the inspiration to insult her, to hurt her, to force her to keep some memory of me. I thought her so beautiful that I should have liked to be able to retrace my steps so as to shake my fist at her and shout, "I think you're hideous, grotesque; how I loathe you!"_ — Marcel Proust

He fell in love with himself at first sight, and it is a passion to which he has always remained faithful. Self-love seems so often unrequited. — Anthony Powell

There's so many other things to write about than unrequited love. — Lucinda Williams

There was a man who loved the moon, but whenever he tried to embrace her, she broke into a thousand pieces and left him drenched, with empty arms. — Laini Taylor

His eyes danced like a teenager. "Eat anyone alive today?" her father joked.
Ruby returned his wicked grin and sauntered into the living room. "Not today, but tomorrow's another day. — Stephanie Greenhalgh

I want to feel intoxicated from inhaling the scent of you. — Truth Devour

What matters most, is not how my end happens, or if it happens now. What I care about in this instant, is that she knows how much I love her - that I lived long enough to have her love me back. — Emm Cole

With 'Futurama,' I wanted to do unrequited love, and David Cohen agreed, and although our original plan was never to have Fry and Leela get together, we finally just said, 'You can only string the fans along so far.' — Matt Groening

I propose in the following discussion to call one's own labor, and the equivalent exchange of one's own labor for the labor of others, the 'economic means' for the satisfaction of needs, while the unrequited appropriation of the labor of others will be called the 'political means'. — Franz Oppenheimer

I thought narcissism was about self-love till someone told me there is a flip side to it ... It is unrequited self-love. — Emily Levine

She had the look in her eye when you kick and kick at the door and it doesn't open, when you write a boy letters and letters and he never loves you, not 'til the day he dies. Not even then. — Daniel Handler

For a full two hours, he stood at that door, a cloud of uncertainty ruling his mind. Damian felt like his heart was about to burst. Could she love him? Was it really true? — Elaine White

My heart is not brave or big. It is not cruel either. It is not strong at all. I keep it within this iron cage for a reason. Breathe on it wrong and I will die ... Just go now. I would rather let you see my face, than my heart.'
Laertes, Count of Samothrace — Rebecca Ashe

Oh, the pain of it, thought Lee, thinking about his children, oh! the exquisite pain of unrequited love. The only authentic wound, the sweet curse they inflict on you, the revenge of heterosexuality. — Angela Carter

What do you want from me, Snow?"
"Nothing," he says. And he means it, the actual bastard. — Rainbow Rowell

All that existed was the blinding imperative to not think, to leave it all behind. To have it all fade to black in the throes of a truly good orgasm. To thrust and rock and pound until he came long and hard. To reach the pinnacle as fast as he could, to leap off the edge and truly leave all his earth-bound worries behind.
He was a cave man.
He was a Neanderthal.
He was fucking Cro-Magnon. — Amy Andrews

My love let me be your chalice your holy grail of dreams. — Truth Devour

Special. Cute. Friends. He wished she'd just cut his testicles off and be done with it already. Depending on the next adjective she chose for him, he would either qualify as a card-carrying member of Emasculated Men's Club or a Muppet. No wonder he avoided love for as long as he had. When it went unrequited, it truly sucked. — Jennifer Shirk

It's crazy, that the defining moment of your life can be nothing to someone else. Like an infatuation, an unrequited love, every bit of you is drawn to it, orbits that heaviness at the center of your universe, everything you think and feel revolving around it and yet, nobody knows. Even the one who caused it. Especially the one who caused it. — Leah Raeder

Mom put dense cheddar bread into a bag for a man who said this was his wife's favorite - he'd driven all the way from New Jersey to buy it because today was their anniversary. Several women in the store jabbed their husbands on hearing this. I hung my head - Peter Terris wouldn't cross the street to buy me a Twinkie. — Joan Bauer

At that moment the ghost dance seems to Zinnia like the relationship of two people who never quite consummate the love they feel for each other. — Glenn Haybittle

My reflections amount to a love story that is mostly made up, from memories that are mostly false, between people who were mainly not there. The things for which she was not there have her in them now more deeply because of her absence, and her effect on my way of seeing them. Anytime I note her absence from a thing, she arrives at once, as if summoned, entrenching herself more deeply than she exists in my memories of times when she was there, so that time, the sequence of what really happened, seems to curve around her. — Olivia Sudjic

I can't give you the moon," the tinker said. "She doesn't belong to me. She belongs only to herself. — Patrick Rothfuss

Unrequited love is a ridiculous state, and it makes those in it behave ridiculously. — Cassandra Clare

The thing about me loving Harry is I'm twelve and he's maybe thirty or thirty-five, whatever, so he'll have to wait like six years for me to grow up. I mean if he kills Hiskott and sets us free, he'll have to wait. He'll never do that. As kind and sweet and brave as he is, he probably has a girl already a hundred others chasing after him. So what I'll have to do is always love him from afar. Unrequited love. That's what they generally call it. I'll love him forever in a deeply, deeply sad kind of way, which maybe you think sounds pretty depressing, but it isn't. Being obsessed about a deeply sad unrequited love can take your mind off the worse things, of which there are thousands, and sometimes it's better to dwell endlessly on what you can't have than on what might happen to you at any moment in Harmony corner. — Dean Koontz

The thought of her gave me such a continual anguish that I could no more forget her than an aching tooth. It was involuntary, hopeless, compulsive. For years she had been the first thing I remembered when I woke up, the last thing that drifted through my mind as I went to sleep, and during the day she came to me obtrusively, obsessively, always with a painful shock. — Donna Tartt

Since I met you, I feel like I can see the operating system of the world- and it is unrequited love. That is why everyone's doing everything. Every book, opera house, moon shot and manifesto is here because someone, somewhere, lit up silent when someone else came into the room, and then quietly burned when they didn't notice them. — Caitlin Moran

No one had ever given me any idea on how to handle it when the right one came along, but you weren't the right one for him. — Jay Crownover

Although love unreturned can drive you to despair, trust that somewhere out there, someone is waiting just for you. — Laura Ramirez

Most of you have been where I am tonight. The crash site of unrequited love. You ask yourself, How did I get here? What was it about? Was it her smile? Was it the way she crossed her legs, the turn of her ankle, the poignant vulnerability of her slender wrists? What are these elusive and ephemeral things that ignite passion in the human heart? That's an age-old question. It's perfect food for thought on a bright midsummer's night. — Sybil Adelman

There is nothing so mortifying as to fall in love with someone who does not share one's sentiments. — Georgette Heyer

Garrett has been the best friend a girl could want, so how could I be so stupid as to think about shutting him out for good? I've been so busy thinking about my unrequited love, I haven't even stopped to consider the other, more important part of our relationship.
Friendship.
Ignoring him now would make him think I don't care, that I don't want to be friends. I want to get over him, not lose him for good! How must he feel, with me not replying to his texts and e-mails like this? What kind of friend am I? — Abby McDonald

Never stop believing that your dreams are eternal. — Truth Devour

I can't do it anymore ... The way you consume my mind when we aren't together? I don't have time for it anymore. I've got more important things to think about now than your little weak moments — Colleen Hoover

I'm not unlucky at love, just incredibly lucky with celibacy. — Tim Heaton

To know true love, even though it was impossible to keep, had finally cracked her heart open enough to let someone else in. — Andrea Hurst

Love?' he asked himself, giving no sense of recognition for that word in the dictionary of his mind. It was the only battle he had lost in life, the only thing that had been snatched away from him, before he could even claim it. — Faraaz Kazi

I loved you even when you forgot me.
And - for a little while - you loved me back. — Julio Alexi Genao

The closer he was the less confident I was. — Shannon A. Thompson

Pornography, in my opinion, has been much misunderstood, for it doesn't develop sex fiends and send them roaming alleyways - it is an anodyne for the sexually oppressed and unrequited, for what is the aim of pornography if not to stimulate masturbation? And surely masturbation is the pleasanter alternative for men "on the muscle," as they say in horse-breeding circles. — Truman Capote

Though you are three times more beautiful than angels,
Though you are the sister of the river willows,
I will kill you with my singing,
Without spilling your blood on the ground.
Not touching you with my hand,
Not giving you one glance, I will stop loving you,
But with your unimaginable groans
I will finally slake my thirst.
From her, who wandered the earth before me,
Crueler than ice, more fiery than flame,
From her, who still exists in the ether
From her you will set me free. — Anna Akhmatova

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 want to memorise every aspect of you. — Truth Devour

Yes, you are still grieving for the fact that Olly is not loving you as you love him. But death is no solution. Certainly not this horrible, messy death. Could you at least not consider possible option that is not leaving you looking diabolical at funeral?"
Oh, for the love of God. — Lucy Holliday

I stand, and wait among the sea foam. I swim in my own tears-I sing without my voice. I do not reach for higher ground, because I have lapped in the churning waters. — Meredith T. Taylor

It's all heartbreak, death, and unrequited love." "Well, that is what most songs are about," said Will. "Requited love is ideal but doesn't make much of a ballad — Cassandra Clare

What does agonizical mean?" she asks. I hold up my hands like it's obvious. "To be consumed with shock and denial at unrequited love from the man who is supposed to be your soul mate, — Katie Kacvinsky

That it's no good loving me because I'm never going to get married anyway and he'd just end up hating me later instead of sooner. — Suzanne Collins

I watched you try on suits in Hugo Boss.'For the big job,' you said. And I laughed, because I knew I would never see it. I'd never get up and watch you put it on and walk out of the door. I would never be the one that you came home to. — Kate Chisman

Even before you touched me, I belonged to you; all you had to do was look at me. — Louise Gluck

Next worst thing to unrequited Love, isn't it? Insufficient hate. — Thomas Pynchon

All I have ever wanted, needed, dreamed and desired is contained within you. — Truth Devour

I wrote a song at age five about algae on the pond by our house, then the next 'real' song was in fifth grade about an unrequited crush. — Greta Salpeter

Your dress is thin, you have been dancing, you are heated." "Always preaching," retorted she; "always coddling and admonishing." The answer Dr. John would have given did not come; that his heart was hurt became evident in his eye; darkened, and saddened, and pained, he turned a little aside, but was patient. — Charlotte Bronte

I remembered Daemon's feather soft kisses on my cheek, and I remembered the clouds parting and the sun shining on a cold February day in Ireland. And as my baby girl was laid on my chest and my husband held my hand, I saw my best friend Kat walk into the sun kissed part in the clouds, hand in hand, along with the last regrets of my past. — Rebecca Boucher

Love is a rare and precious thing. Squander it at your peril. — Wayne Gerard Trotman

Not a day or an hour and sometimes not even a moment in advance did I have any idea what Patrick had in mind for me, or whether he had me in mind at all. This uncertainty lay like a sore under the surface of my skin, erupting again and again, then subsiding, but never healing. — Jan Ellison

Had Martha Foley returned William [James Sidis]'s passion as Margaret [Engemann] did Norbert [Wiener]'s, perhaps the two prodigies would have had more in common in the long run. ... In the life of a prodigy, perhaps more than in the average life, a marriage or a requited love is the greatest single factor that can heal the old childhood wounds. William and Norbert's response to their childhood and teenage rejections and humiliations was to retreat into the painless world of ideas, where successes and satisfactions abounded. A successful love affair could be the key to reentry into the world of feeling, bridging the gap between the cerebral and the emotional lives. — Amy Wallace

The specter of unrequited love can strike at any time, reducing even the most fearless, independent woman to a weepy wreck — Abby McDonald

And said with the softness of repressed violence, 'I am not one to stick his neck out; it is a bit of a reach. I was waiting for the smallest sign that you could love me ... I never got it.'
Laertes, Count of Samothrace — Rebecca Ashe

One sided-love always goes with the urge of possessing. — Yu-Rang Han

A mighty pain to love it is,
And 't is a pain that pain to miss;
But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain. — Abraham Cowley

I brought you here to tell you this: sometimes what we are searching for does not exist. We may sacrifice for it, even bleed for it, but it was never meant to be ours. — Esther Dalseno

The world is full of unrequited love,' I said finally.
'You and Patrick having problems?' Dad said, reaching around to get the butter out of the fridge.
'No, I was just wondering what you would say if I was a lesbian.'
'Come again?' said Lester. 'I'm having a hard time following this conversation. — Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

He supposed that even in Hell, people got an occasional sip of water, if only so they could appreciate the full horror of unrequited thirst when it set in again. — Stephen King

Which is worse? Loving someone and not being able to be with them or not loving someone and having to be with them. — Donna Lynn Hope

The way of the nomad is to accept everything as it comes: there is no anticipation of better days, no longing for the unrequited, no despair for loss. — D.J. Niko

Everything was Amelia's fault. He hadn't done anything wrong and neither had Kaitlin, but they were the ones paying the price and for what? To bring back a girl that he hated and wished he could kill but couldn't? To bring back a girl who had broken her mother's heart to such an extent that it killed her? As far as Damian was concerned, it wasn't worth it. She didn't deserve to come back; she didn't deserve to live. No, Amelia deserved nothing, and especially not his love. — Elaine White

The problem with me is that I cannot focus when she is on my mind. I can't. I probably will make a mistake when writing that paper and will start writing everything I feel about her - the professor will be very happy with that, I am sure. Oh well, such is my life. I guess I've been attempting my best to forget her for several weeks now. But even in that act of forgetting her, I am remembering her. I am recollecting her and recreating her in my mind. And that's where everything falls apart. In remembering her, I remember her goodness. In remembering her, I remember her weaknesses and my own. In remembering her, I am remembering myself. Out of that dark cave of mine, I call myself out. And then all of the remembering starts again. I doodle, I twitch, I aim restlessly for some unseen goal. And then my thoughts drift to you.
I'll let them stay there for now. Just for a minute.
Or two. — Moses Y. Mikheyev

Every night I build a fire for you, Alowa. Every night I dance on the rooftop for you. Look at the flames, Alowa. Aren't they beautiful? Look at the smoke. I'm dancing in the smoke, Alowa. — Glenn Haybittle