Romance

"And they were quiet but their blood and nerves and butterflies were not—they were rampantly alive, rushing and thrumming in a wild and perfect melody, matched note for note."

"I hate seeing poetry in everything I touch. I hate that I can no longer love you without turning you into a metaphor - that it can never be simple as looking at you and saying yes, yes, yes."

"She certainly did not hate him. No; hatred had vanished long ago, and she had almost as long been ashamed of ever feeling a dislike against him, that could be so called. The respect created by the conviction of his valuable qualities, though at first unwillingly admitted, had for some time ceased to be repugnant to her feelings; and it was now heightened into somewhat of a friendlier nature, by the testimony so highly in his favour, and bringing forward his disposition in so amiable a light, which yesterday had produced. But above all, above respect and esteem, there was a motive within her of good will which could not be overlooked. It was gratitude.--Gratitude not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough, to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection. He who, she had been persuaded, would avoid her as his greatest enemy, seemed, on this accidental meeting, most eager to preserve the acquaintance, and without any indelicate display of regard, or any peculiarity of manner, where their two selves only were concerned, was soliciting the good opinion of her friends, and bent on making her known to his sister. Such a change in a man of so much pride, excited not only astonishment but gratitude--for to love, ardent love, it must be attributed; and as such its impression on her was of a sort to be encouraged, as by no means unpleasing, though it could not exactly be defined."

"The truth is I do love you. Admitting that means opening myself up to all that pain when you leave. After you realize this wasn’t love, but gratitude."

"Longing surged up within me. I wanted it. Oh God, I wanted it. I didn't want to hear Jerome chastise me for my "all lowlifes, all the time" seduction policy. I wanted to come home and tell someone about my day. I wanted to go out dancing on the weekends. I wanted to take vacations together. I wanted someone to hold me when I was upset, when the ups and downs of the world pushed me too far. I wanted someone to love."

"Living is hard--dying is easy. You close your eyes and never open them again. What's so difficult about that? Nothing really--except it hurts like hell to those you leave behind."

"A woman with romance in her life lived as grandly as a queen, because her heart was treasured."

"If you loved someone, you couldn’t let lies come between you. No matter what happened—even if you’d already lost each other forever—you owed each other the truth."

"I want to be with you forever and beyond..."

"She moved to pinch me again but I blocked her hand. I'm no expert on girls, but when one tries to pinch you four times, I'm pretty sure that's flirting."

"Love is giving up control. It’s surrendering the desire to control the other person. The two—love and controlling power over the other person—are mutually exclusive. If we are serious about loving someone, we have to surrender all the desires within us to manipulate the relationship."

"Not so much two ships passing in the night as two ships sailing together for a time but always bound for different ports."

"Now turn around and go to sleep. I'm warning you that I plan to sleep with you in my arms all night long."

"Welcome to Paris, Anna. I'm glad you've come."

"And Meredith and Bonnie, who's going to bend some spoons for us next. I'm going to throw you down a rope… that is, unless Bonnie can levitate you out."

"It slowly began to dawn on me that I had been staring at her for an impossible amount of time. Lost in my thoughts, lost in the sight of her. But her face didn't look offended or amused. It almost looked as if she were studying the lines of my face, almost as if she were waiting. I wanted to take her hand. I wanted to brush her cheek with my fingertips. I wanted to tell her that she was the first beautiful thing that I had seen in three years. The sight of her yawning to the back of her hand was enough to drive the breath from me. How I sometimes lost the sense of her words in the sweet fluting of her voice. I wanted to say that if she were with me then somehow nothing could ever be wrong for me again. In that breathless second I almost asked her. I felt the question boiling up from my chest. I remember drawing a breath then hesitating--what could I say? Come away with me? Stay with me? Come to the University? No. Sudden certainty tightened in my chest like a cold fist. What could I ask her? What could I offer? Nothing. Anything I said would sound foolish, a child's fantasy. I closed my mouth and looked across the water. Inches away, Denna did the same. I could feel the heat of her. She smelled like road dust, and honey, and the smell the air holds seconds before a heavy summer rain. Neither of us spoke. I closed my eyes. The closeness of her was the sweetest, sharpest thing I had ever known."

"Had he but turned back then, and looked out once more on to the rose-lit garden, she would have seen that which would have made her own sufferings seem but light and easy to bear--a strong man, overwhelmed with his own passion and despair. Pride had given way at last, obstinacy was gone: the will was powerless. He was but a man madly, blindly, passionately in love and as soon as her light footstep had died away within the house, he knelt down upon the terrace steps, and in the very madness of his love he kissed one by one the places where her small foot had trodden, and the stone balustrade, where her tiny hand had rested last."

"Giving generously in romantic relationships, and in all other bonds, means recognizing when the other person needs our attention. Attention is an important resource."

"Because we all need to believe in movies, sometimes."

"We're out of time, Payton. You said it yourself: the only way we'll make it is for us to go into this together. I know we can do this. But I need you to believe it. You need to believe... in us."Peyton didn't say anything for a long moment, and J. D. could literally hear his heart beating. Then she finally answered."It would have to be called Kendall and Jameson."It took J. D a moment to catch on. Then he grinned. "No way. Jameson and Kendall. It's alphabetical."You told our boss that you banged me on top of your desk."Kendall and Jameson sounds great"