Romance

"YOU MIGHT LEAVE ME FOR MY BETTER OR WORST, BUT FOR ME, I WANNA LIVE WITH YOU FOR OUR BETTER AND WORST."

"He faced Doug. His eyes were wet. "I am not one of your tricks, Douglas."Of course, you're not."That's what I feel like tonight, seeing you in there with all those bodies. One of a thousand nights. One of a thousand fucks. And fuck you for making me feel this way. And fuck you again for making me say fuck in this beautiful place."

"Exquisite pain. The kind you wanted to feel every day for the rest of your life. It was the pain of finally having something you wanted. Something you’d longed for. Longed for since you had memories. Something life taught you to believe you’d never have. Something, if you lived without it, it left a void in your soul you knew would never be filled. Something, without it, you knew you’d never be whole. It was something you needed. It was as necessary as breath. It was what was required to complete you"."

"She wore her pain like lingerie, only who loved her enough, got to see it."

"... I do not know how I can feel this much pain and survive, and at the same time know how much I have to live."

"She stares at it for several moments before taking it out from underneath the plastic film that covers it. Then she holds it with the affection of a mother for her new-born child, tender and loving; Preeti’s eyes soften briefly just for that moment. The lava of hurt makes way into her throat, setting ablaze all that she has held within. As memories meet sentience, the apartment echoes with her muffled cries. The photograph, a silent spectator, drenches in her grief as the tears start their descent."

"they always mentioned his name. For her, it was as if they were constantly squeezing lemon juice on an open wound."

"I have a love/pain relationship with her. Love that caused more pain and pain that changed me."

"There is only one thing in this world worse than dying and that’s watching someone you love die instead—you feel their pain with no final solace."

"We are all capable of loving."

"It finally was entirely silent and I inhaled and breathed its magical peace..."

"I have heard it said that one loses a woman by loving her too much, that an affectation of coldness, from time to time, brings better results. And so on. I shall play no such tricks with you … Let love be truly love—that is, let it be peace—or let it not exist at all."

"May you love blossom like a lily."

"No, Mary had no illusions about romance. Falling in love was a pretty name for it, that was all. Jem Merlyn was a man, and she was a woman, and whether it was his hands or his skin or his smile she did not know, but something inside her responded to him, and the very thought of him was an irritant and a stimulant at the same time. It nagged at her and would not let her be."

"People who fell in love at first sight, rushed home to their parents to tell them the good news and subsequently married were, [Patricia Highsmith] thought, retarded. Rather, a more honest appraisal of the nature of love positions it nearer to the horrors of mental illness. How else could you explain the fact that so many people were prepared to sacrifice the safety and cosiness of their lives for the thrill of a new romance?"

"It didn’t matter that she didn’t live here, that a relationship was out of the question. It was probably because a relationship wouldn’t happen that he could let himself get this close. He wrapped his arms tighter around her as though this were all that existed in the world. Just the two of them, the mountain, the clean winter air. The taste of her tongue on his lips."

"She dreamed of autumn. Of chilly autumn winds and soft fall rains. She could even feel the cool moisture as the rain drops touched her face and ran down her cheeks. Her denim skirt and work boots felt heavy as the rain in her dreams splashed cold water against them"

"This [sand-dollar hunting] had become one of our rituals together, and though she would search for other varieties of shells when I was out of town or unable to see her, she would wait until I appeared on her front porch before setting off to extract these mute delicate coins from their settings in the sand. At first, we had collected only the larger specimens, but gradually as we learned what was rare and to be truly prized, we began to gather only the smallest sand dollars for our collection. Our trophies were sometimes as small as thumbnails and as fragile as contact lenses. Annie Kate collected the tiniest relics, round and cruciform and white as bone china when dried of sea water, and placed them in a glass-and-copper cricket box in her bedroom. Often we would sit together and admire the modest splendor of our accumulation. At times it looked like the coinage of a shy, diminutive species of angel. Our quest to find the smallest sand dollar became a competition between us, and as the months passed and Annie Kate grew larger with the child, the brittle, desiccated animals we unearthed from the sand became smaller and smaller. It was all a matter of training the eye to expect less."

"Don’t fret. We all experience it. We must. For despite our humanity love is the only way we can be like gods. It is in love that we glimpse heaven during our lifetime and have proof that there’s something worth looking forward to in the end."

"Love has no gender - compassion has no religion - character has no race."