A Romantic Quotes

A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.

My experience of life is that it is not divided up into genres; it’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky.

My nightmares are usually about losing you. I'm okay once I realize you're here.

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope...I have loved none but you.

I heard what you said. I’m not the silly romantic you think. I don’t want the heavens or the shooting stars. I don’t want gemstones or gold. I have those things already. I want…a steady hand. A kind soul. I want to fall asleep, and wake, knowing my heart is safe. I want to love, and be loved.

He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.

To say goodbye is to die a little.

I'm not sentimental--I'm as romantic as you are. The idea, you know, is that the sentimental person thinks things will last--the romantic person has a desperate confidence that they won't.

Sometimes I wonder if there's something wrong with me. Perhaps I've spent too long in the company of my literary romantic heroes, and consequently my ideals and expectations are far too high.

When it comes to men who are romantically interested in you, it’s really simple. Just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do.

Cynics are simply thwarted romantics.

Nerd girls are the world’s most underutilized romantic resource. And guys, do not tell me that nerd girls are not hot because that shows a Paris Hilton-esque failure to understand hotness.

Most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect while most women fear rape and death.

I tended to be more a romantic than a realist, and chose blind faith over cold logic.

Rejection is an opportunity for your selection.

Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.

Are you following me?" she asks, but doesn't meet my gaze. "Yeah," I say. "Why?" I give her the only honest and true answer I have. "You're where I want to be.

I would rather a romantic relationship turn into contempt than turn into apathy. The passion in the extremities make it appear as though it once meant something. We grow from hot or cold, but lukewarm is the biggest insult.

A real girl isn't perfect and a perfect girl isn't real.

You fell in love with a storm. Did you really think you would get out unscathed?

A woman should be able to kiss a man beautifully and romantically without any desire to be either his wife or his mistress.

I vowed after that day that I would be your hero too, no matter how long it took

in a world full of temporary things you are a perpetual feeling.

Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.

I was more addicted to self destruction then to the drugs themselves ... something very romantic about it

I'd cut up my heart for you to wear if you wanted it.

Daemon pressed his forehead against mine. "Oh, I still want to strangle you. But I'm insane. You're crazy. Maybe that's why. We just make crazy together.

Love is not a habit, a commitment, or a debt. It isn't what romantic songs tell us it is - love simply is.

You are damaged and broken and unhinged. But so are shooting stars and comets.

Love means never having to say you're sorry.

Love, like everything else in life, should be a discovery, an adventure, and like most adventures, you don’t know you’re having one until you’re right in the middle of it.

Find meaning. Distinguish melancholy from sadness. Go out for a walk. It doesn’t have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into another world. It doesn’t have to be a walk during which you’ll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter. Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find meaning or don’t find meaning but 'steal' some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn’t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be.

I love you, in my mind where my thoughts reside, in my heart where my emotions live, and in my soul where my dreams are born. I love you.

She absorbed the terror and beauty of him and his world. Of every moment over the past days. All of it, filling her up like the first breath she'd ever taken. And never had she loved life more.

I grabbed my book and opened it up. I wanted to smell it. Heck, I wanted to kiss it. Yes, kiss it. That's right, I am a book kisser. Maybe that's kind of perverted or maybe it's just romantic and highly intelligent.

Falling in love is very real, but I used to shake my head when people talked about soul mates, poor deluded individuals grasping at some supernatural ideal not intended for mortals but sounded pretty in a poetry book. Then, we met, and everything changed, the cynic has become the converted, the sceptic, an ardent zealot.

Over everything, I choose you

Is that why you hate me?" I ask. "Partly," She admits. "Jealousy is certainly involved. I also think you're a little hard to swallow. With your tacky romantic drama and your defender-of-the-helpless act. Only it isn't an act, which makes you more unbearable. Please feel free to take this personally.

When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.

Actually, you said Love, for you, is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s terrifying. No one will ever want to sleep with you.

Soul meets soul on lovers lips.

Sometimes loneliness makes the loudest noise.

But I didn't know about the other story." "What other story?” "About how you and Adrian Ivashkov are—" "No, whatever you heard it’s not true." "But it was really romantic" "Then it’s definitely not true.

TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.

There's plenty more fish in the sea than Prince Jonathan," he told her softly. "And this particular fish loves you with all his crooked heart." -George to Alanna

كنت شامخاً.. وسيماً .. لطيفاً .. و حنوناً إلى حد مؤلم!

Baby, I could watch you watching paint dry, and I still wouldn’t be bored.” Garrett Graham, my own personal sweet-talker.

You are enough to drive a saint to madness or a king to his knees.

Why is summer mist romantic and autumn mist just sad?

Being poor is only romantic in books.

Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another--physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion.

And then I'll come find you, and I'll take care of you." - Adam

Believe me, I'm no romantic, and while I've heard all about love at first sight, I've never believed in it, and I still don't. But even so, there was something there, something recognizably real, and I couldn't look away.

You’re so freaking romantic. I don’t know how I keep my pants on.

We live in a dark and romantic and quite tragic world.

Maybe we've lived a thousand lives before this one and in each of them we've found each other... I know I've spent each life before this one searching for you. Not someone like you but you, for your soul and mine must always come together.

To love well is the task in all meaningful relationships, not just romantic bonds.

The most introspective of souls are often those that have been hurt the most.

I want you forever, not just for tonight.

He'd written me up a proposal of why dating him was a sound decision. It had included things like "I'll give up cigarettes unless I really, really need one" and "I'll unleash romantic surprises every week, such as: an impromptu picnic, roses, or a trip to Paris—but not actually any of those things because now they're not surprises.

I simply regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world created therein has different rules than my regular human world.

They'll say you are bad or perhaps you are mad or at least you should stay undercover. Your mind must be bare if you would dare to think you can love more than one lover.

The shattering of a heart when being broken is the loudest quiet ever.

I needed to see you. And touch you. And just... know

It's all very romantic," Gabriel said, and then frowned. "Or it would be, if my brother could get a word out without sounding like a choking frog. I fear he will not go down in history as one of the world's greatest wooers of women.

Idiotic reply, June. Why don't you punch him in the face while you're at it. I turn even more flustered when I remember that I have actually pistol-whipped him in the face before. Romantic

To return to love, to get the love we always wanted but never had, to have the love we want but are not prepared to give, we seek romantic relationships. We believe these relationships, more than any other, will rescue and redeem us. True love does have the power to redeem but only if we are ready for redemption. Love saves us only if we want to be saved.

I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If ever I get married, I'll certainly try to forget the fact.

He froze, becoming stone still. As the hover climbed the hill to the palace, his shoulders sank, and he returned his gaze to the window. "She's my alpha," he murmured, with a haunting sadness in his voice. Alpha. Cress leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees, "Like the star?" "What star?" She stiffened, instantly embarrassed, and scooted back from him again. "Oh. Um. In a constellation, the brightest star is called the alpha. I thought maybe you meant that she's...like...your brightest star." Looking away, she knotted her hands in her lap, aware that she was blushing furiously now and this beast of a man was about to realize what an over-romantic sap she was. But instead of sneering or laughing, Wolf sighed, "Yes," he said, his gaze climbing up to the full moon that had emerged in the blue evening sky. "Exactly like that.

You two are too cute,” the counter girl said, setting two cups piled with whipped cream on the counter. She had a sort of lopsided, open smile that made me think she laughed a lot. “Seriously. How long have you been going out?” Sam let go of my hands to get his wallet and took out some bills. “Six years.” I wrinkled my nose to cover a laugh. Of course he would count the time that we’d been two entirely different species. Whoa.” Counter girl nodded appreciatively. “That’s pretty amazing for a couple your age." Sam handed me my hot chocolate and didn’t answer. But his yellow eyes gazed at me possessively—I wondered if he realized that the way he looked at me was far more intimate than copping a feel could ever be. I crouched to look at the almond bark on the bottom shelf in the counter. I wasn’t quite bold enough to look at either of them when I admitted, “Well, it was love at first sight.” The girl sighed. “That is just so romantic. Do me a favor, and don’t you two ever change. The world needs more love at first sight.

Look, Simon, Luke thinks you should tell your mom. You can't hide it from her forever." "I can damn well try." "Think about Luke," she said desperately. "You can still live a normal life." "And what about us? Do you want a vampire boyfriend?" He laughed bitterly. "Because I foresee many romantic picnics in our future. You, drinking a virgin pina colada. Me, drinking the blood of a virgin.

Hugh and I have been together for so long that in order to arouse extraordinary passion, we need to engage in physical combat. Once, he hit me on the back of the head with a broken wineglass, and I fell to the floor pretending to be unconscious. That was romantic, or would have been had he rushed to my side rather than stepping over my body to fetch the dustpan.

Choosing a path meant having to miss out on others. She had a whole life to live, and she was always thinking that, in the future, she might regret the choices she made now. “I’m afraid of committing myself,” she thought to herself. She wanted to follow all possible paths and so ended up following none. Even in that most important area of her life, love, she had failed to commit herself. After her first romantic disappointment, she had never again given herself entirely. She feared pan, loss, and separation. These things were inevitable on the path to love, and the only way of avoiding them was by deciding not to take that path at all. In order not to suffer, you had to renounce love. It was like putting out your own eyes not to see the bad things in life.

I regret..." Tobias tilts his head, and sighs. "I regret my choice." "What Choice?" "Dauntless," he says. "I was born Abnegation. I was planning on leaving Dauntless, and becoming factionless. But I met her, and... I felt like maybe I could make something more of my decision." Her.

At some point during almost every romantic comedy, the female lead suddenly trips and falls, stumbling helplessly over something ridiculous like a leaf, and then some Matthew McConaughey type either whips around the corner just in the nick of time to save her or is clumsily pulled down along with her. That event predictably leads to the magical moment of their first kiss. Please. I fall ALL the time. You know who comes and gets me? The bouncer.

For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened - then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.

Whatever happened to the dragon?" I mustered my primmest tone. "He has a name, you know." Adrian pulled back and gave me a curious look. "I didn't know, actually. What'd you decide on?" "Hopper." When Adrian laughed, I added, "Best rabbit ever. He'd be proud to know his name is being passed on." "Yes, I'm sure he would. Did you name the Mustang too?" "I think you mean the Ivashkinator." He stared at me in wonder. "I told you I loved you, right? "Yes," I assured him. "Many times.

You are the most dangerous kind of female the world can ever know. You carry the seeds for your own destruction and the destruction of everyone who loves you. And a great many will love you for your beautiful face for your seductive body; but you will fail them all because you will believe they all fail you first. You are an idealist of the worst kind - the romantic idealist. Born to destroy and self destruct.

I was literally seeing stars, and every ragged breath I took felt like I was trying to breathe through broken glass. On the upside, my crush on Archer was totally gone. Over. Once a boy has slammed his kneecap into your rib cage, I think any romantic feeling should naturally go the way of the ghost.

The romantic contrast between modern industry that “destroys nature” and our ancestors who “lived in harmony with nature” is groundless. Long before the Industrial Revolution, Homo sapiens held the record among all organisms for driving the most plant and animal species to their extinctions. We have the dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of life.

Women want their love to be reciprocated in the same way they give it; they want their romantic lives to be as rewarding as they make them for their potential mates; they want the emotions that they turn on full blast to be met with the same intensity; and they expect the premium they put on commitment to be equally adhered to, valued, and respected.

If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the "creative temperament"--it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No--Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.

An unarticulated crush is very different from an unrequited one, because at least with an unrequited crush you know what the hell you're doing, even if the other person isn't doing it back. An unarticulated crush is harder to grapple with, because it's a crush that you haven't even admitted to yourself. The romantic forces are all there -- you want to see him, you always notice him, you treat every word from him as if it weighs more than anyone else's. But you don't know why. You don't know that you're doing it. You'd follow him to the end of the earth without ever admitting that your feet were moving.

When you’re looking for love and it seems like you might not ever find it, remember you probably have access to an abundance of it already, just not the romantic kind. This kind of love might not kiss you in the rain or propose marriage. But it will listen to you, inspire and restore you. It will hold you when you cry, celebrate when you’re happy, and sing All Saints with you when you’re drunk. You have so much to gain and learn from this kind of love. You can carry it with you forever. Keep it as close to you as you can.

It is not so incomprehensible as you pretend, sweet pea. Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard. It can be light as the hug we give a friend or heavy as the sacrifices we make for our children. It can be romantic, platonic, familial, fleeting, everlasting, conditional, unconditional, imbued with sorrow, stoked by sex, sullied by abuse, amplified by kindness, twisted by betrayal, deepened by time, darkened by difficulty, leavened by generosity, nourished by humor and “loaded with promises and commitments” that we may or may not want or keep. The best thing you can possibly do with your life is to tackle the motherfucking shit out of it.

It starts so young, and I'm angry about that. The garbage we're taught. About love, about what's "romantic." Look at so many of the so-called romantic figures in books and movies. Do we ever stop and think how many of them would cause serious and drastic unhappiness after The End? Why are sick and dangerous personality types so often shown a passionate and tragic and something to be longed for when those are the very ones you should run for your life from? Think about it. Heathcliff. Romeo. Don Juan. Jay Gatsby. Rochester. Mr. Darcy. From the rigid control freak in The Sound of Music to all the bad boys some woman goes running to the airport to catch in the last minute of every romantic comedy. She should let him leave. Your time is so valuable, and look at these guys--depressive and moody and violent and immature and self-centered. And what about the big daddy of them all, Prince Charming? What was his secret life? We dont know anything about him, other then he looks good and comes to the rescue.

But whenever I meet dynamic, nonretarded Americans, I notice that they all seem to share a single unifying characteristic: the inability to experience the kind of mind-blowing, transcendent romantic relationship they perceive to be a normal part of living. And someone needs to take the fall for this. So instead of blaming no one for this (which is kind of cowardly) or blaming everyone (which is kind of meaningless), I'm going to blame John Cusack.

I am with you. I'm not going anywhere." "Is there anything special you want to see? Paris? Budapest? The Leaning Tower of Pisa?" Only if it falls on Sebastian's head, she thought. "Can we travel to Idris? I mean, I guess, can the apartment travel there?" "It can't get past the wards." His hand traced a path down her cheek. "You know,I really missed you." "You mean you haven't been going on romantic dates with Sebastian while you've been away from me?" "I tried", Jace said, "but no matter how liquored up you get him , he just won't put out.

He leaned his head to me, his neck so close to my lips, I felt the heat coming off his skin. His breath was warm against my ear. His voice was a ragged snarl. "I miss you." This wasn't happening. "I worry about you." He dipped his head and looked into my eyes. "I worry something stupid will happen and I won't be there and you'll be gone. I worry we won't ever get a chance and it's driving me out of my skull." No, no, no, no......... We stared at each other. The tiny space between us felt too hot. Muscles bulged on his naked frame. He looked feral. Mad gold eyes stared into mine. "Do you miss me, Kate?" I closed my eyes trying to shut him out. I could lie then we would be back to square one. Nothing would be resolved. I'd still be alone, hating him and wanting him. He grabbed my shoulders and shook me once. "Do you miss me?" I took the plunge. "Yes.

You're a hopeless romantic," said Faber. "It would be funny if it were not serious. It's not books you need, it's some of the things that once were in books. The same things could be in the 'parlor families' today. The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios, and televisors, but are not. No,no it's not books at all you're looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type or receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us. Of course you couldn't know this, of course you still can't understand what I mean when i say all this. You are intuitively right, that's what counts.

Asshole.” “Just for that, I expect you to wrap that dirty mouth of yours around my cock tonight.” He narrowed his eyes on me. I couldn’t believe he’d just said that to me in a fancy restaurant where anyone might overhear. “Are you kidding?” “Babe,” he gave me a look that suggested I was missing the obvious, “I never kid about blowjobs.” Our waiter had descended on us just in time to hear those romantic words and his rosy cheeks betrayed his embarrassment. “Ready to order?” he croaked out.“Yes,” Braden answered, obviously uncaring he’d been overhead. “I’ll have the steak, medium-rare.” He smiled softly at me. “What are you having?” He took a swig of water. He thought he was so cool and funny. “Apparently sausage.” Braden choked on the water, coughing into his fists, his eyes bright with mirth as he put his glass back on the table. “Are you okay, sir?” The waiter asked anxiously. “I’m fine, I’m fine.

The necklace was a good excuse," he murmured. "For what?" "I thought maybe I could go to Charleston and show up at your front door to give this back and maybe… you might let me in. Or something. I was worried that another male would court you, so I've been trying to go as fast as I could. I mean, I figured maybe if I could read, and if I took a little better care of myself, and if I tried to stop being such a mean-ass motherfucker…" He shook his head. "But don't misunderstand. It's not like I expected you to be happy to see me. I was just… you know, hoping… coffee. Tea. Chance to talk. Or some shit. Friends, maybe. Except if you had a male, he wouldn't allow that. So, yeah, that's why I've been hurrying." His yellow eyes lifted to hers. He was wincing, as if he were afraid of what might be showing on her face. "Friends?" she said. "Yeah… I mean, I wouldn't disgrace you by asking for more than that. I know that you regret… Anyway, I just couldn't let you go without… Yeah, so… friends.

Pretty fucking tragic twist of fate, but you don’t seem to remember that we first met years ago. An issue, since I remember a little too well. I like no one, absolutely no one, but I liked you from the start. I liked you when I didn’t know you, and now that I do know you it’s only gotten worse. Sometimes, often, always, I think about you before falling asleep. Then I dream of you, and when I wake up my head’s still there, stuck on something funny, beautiful, filthy, intelligent that’s all about you. It’s been going on for a while, longer than you think, longer than you can imagine, and I should have told you, but I have this impression, this certainty that you’re half a second from running away, that I should give you enough reasons to stay. Is there anything I can do for you? I’ll take you grocery shopping and fill your fridge when we’re back home. Buy you a new bike and a case of decent reagent and that sludge you drink. Kill the people who made you cry. Is there something you need? Name it. It’s yours. If I have it, it’s yours.

The love stories sold us the wrong thing. The best kind of love doesn’t happen on moonlit walks and romantic vacations. It happens in between the folds of everyday life. It’s not grand gestures that show how you feel, it’s all the little secret things you do to make her life better that you never tell her about. Taking the end piece of the bread at breakfast so she can have the last middle piece for her sandwich when you pack her lunch. Making sure her car always has gas so she never has to stop at the pump. Telling her you’re not cold and to take your jacket when you are in fact, very, very cold. It’s watching TV on a rainy Sunday while you’re doing laundry and turning her light off when she’s fallen asleep reading. Sharing pizza crusts and laughing about something the kids did and taking care of each other when you’re sick. It isn’t glamorous, it isn’t all butterflies and stars in your eyes. It’s real. This is the kind of love that forever is made of. Because if it’s this good when life is draining and mundane and hard, think of how wonderful it will be when the love songs are playing and the moon is out.

I needed to say something. Something romantic! Something to sweep her off her feet. "You’re like a potato!" I shouted after her. "In a minefield." She froze in place. Then she spun on me, her face lit by a half-grown fruit. “A potato,” she said flatly. “That’s the best you can do? Seriously?” “It makes sense,” I said. “Listen. You’re strolling through a minefield, worried about getting blown up. And then you step on something, and you think, ‘I’m dead.’ But it’s just a potato. And you’re so relieved to find something so wonderful when you expected something so awful. That’s what you are. To me.” “A potato.” “Sure. French fries? Mashed potatoes? Who doesn’t like potatoes?” “Plenty of people. Why can’t I be something sweet, like a cake?” “Because cake wouldn’t grow in a minefield. Obviously.” She stared down the hallway at me for a few moments, then sat on an overgrown set of roots. Sparks. She seemed to be crying. Idiot! I thought at myself, scrambling through the foliage. Romantic. You were supposed to be romantic, you slontze! Potatoes weren’t romantic. I should have gone with a carrot.

Chapter 1. He adored New York City. He idolized it all out of proportion...no, make that: he - he romanticized it all out of proportion. Yeah. To him, no matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin.' Uh, no let me start this over. 'Chapter 1. He was too romantic about Manhattan, as he was about everything else. He thrived on the hustle bustle of the crowds and the traffic. To him, New York meant beautiful women and street-smart guys who seemed to know all the angles...'. Ah, corny, too corny for my taste. Can we ... can we try and make it more profound? 'Chapter 1. He adored New York City. For him, it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. The same lack of individual integrity that caused so many people to take the easy way out was rapidly turning the town of his dreams in...' No, that's going to be too preachy. I mean, you know, let's face it, I want to sell some books here. 'Chapter 1. He adored New York City, although to him it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. How hard it was to exist in a society desensitized by drugs, loud music, television, crime, garbage...' Too angry, I don't want to be angry. 'Chapter 1. He was as tough and romantic as the city he loved. Behind his black-rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat.' I love this. 'New York was his town, and it always would be.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1939 I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night. Accurate scholarship can Unearth the whole offence From Luther until now That has driven a culture mad, Find what occurred at Linz, What huge imago made A psychopathic god: I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. Exiled Thucydides knew All that a speech can say About Democracy, And what dictators do, The elderly rubbish they talk To an apathetic grave; Analysed all in his book, The enlightenment driven away, The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again. Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse: But who can live for long In an euphoric dream; Out of the mirror they stare, Imperialism's face And the international wrong. Faces along the bar Cling to their average day: The lights must never go out, The music must always play, All the conventions conspire To make this fort assume The furniture of home; Lest we should see where we are, Lost in a haunted wood, Children afraid of the night Who have never been happy or good. The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart; For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love But to be loved alone. From the conservative dark Into the ethical life The dense commuters come, Repeating their morning vow; 'I will be true to the wife, I'll concentrate more on my work,' And helpless governors wake To resume their compulsory game: Who can release them now, Who can reach the dead, Who can speak for the dumb? All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die. Defenseless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.

Soon after the completion of his college course, his whole nature was kindled into one intense and passionate effervescence of romantic passion. His hour came,—the hour that comes only once; his star rose in the horizon,—that star that rises so often in vain, to be remembered only as a thing of dreams; and it rose for him in vain. To drop the figure,—he saw and won the love of a high-minded and beautiful woman, in one of the northern states, and they were affianced. He returned south to make arrangements for their marriage, when, most unexpectedly, his letters were returned to him by mail, with a short note from her guardian, stating to him that ere this reached him the lady would be the wife of another. Stung to madness, he vainly hoped, as many another has done, to fling the whole thing from his heart by one desperate effort. Too proud to supplicate or seek explanation, he threw himself at once into a whirl of fashionable society, and in a fortnight from the time of the fatal letter was the accepted lover of the reigning belle of the season; and as soon as arrangements could be made, he became the husband of a fine figure, a pair of bright dark eyes, and a hundred thousand dollars; and, of course, everybody thought him a happy fellow. The married couple were enjoying their honeymoon, and entertaining a brilliant circle of friends in their splendid villa, near Lake Pontchartrain, when, one day, a letter was brought to him in that well-remembered writing. It was handed to him while he was in full tide of gay and successful conversation, in a whole room-full of company. He turned deadly pale when he saw the writing, but still preserved his composure, and finished the playful warfare of badinage which he was at the moment carrying on with a lady opposite; and, a short time after, was missed from the circle. In his room,alone, he opened and read the letter, now worse than idle and useless to be read. It was from her, giving a long account of a persecution to which she had been exposed by her guardian's family, to lead her to unite herself with their son: and she related how, for a long time, his letters had ceased to arrive; how she had written time and again, till she became weary and doubtful; how her health had failed under her anxieties, and how, at last, she had discovered the whole fraud which had been practised on them both. The letter ended with expressions of hope and thankfulness, and professions of undying affection, which were more bitter than death to the unhappy young man. He wrote to her immediately: I have received yours,—but too late. I believed all I heard. I was desperate. I am married, and all is over. Only forget,—it is all that remains for either of us." And thus ended the whole romance and ideal of life for Augustine St. Clare. But the real remained,—the real, like the flat, bare, oozy tide-mud, when the blue sparkling wave, with all its company of gliding boats and white-winged ships, its music of oars and chiming waters, has gone down, and there it lies, flat, slimy, bare,—exceedingly real. Of course, in a novel, people's hearts break, and they die, and that is the end of it; and in a story this is very convenient. But in real life we do not die when all that makes life bright dies to us.

Every morning the maple leaves. Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out You will be alone always and then you will die. So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog of non-definitive acts, something other than the desperation. Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your party. Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I came to your party and seduced you and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing. You want a better story. Who wouldn’t? A forest, then. Beautiful trees. And a lady singing. Love on the water, love underwater, love, love and so on. What a sweet lady. Sing lady, sing! Of course, she wakes the dragon. Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly flames everywhere. I can tell already you think I’m the dragon, that would be so like me, but I’m not. I’m not the dragon. I’m not the princess either. Who am I? I’m just a writer. I write things down. I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure, I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow glass, but that comes later. Let me do it right for once, for the record, let me make a thing of cream and stars that becomes, you know the story, simply heaven. Inside your head you hear a phone ringing and when you open your eyes only a clearing with deer in it. Hello deer. Inside your head the sound of glass, a car crash sound as the trucks roll over and explode in slow motion. Hello darling, sorry about that. Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that, but I should have known. Inside your head you hear a phone ringing, and when you open your eyes you’re washing up in a stranger’s bathroom, standing by the window in a yellow towel, only twenty minutes away from the dirtiest thing you know. All the rooms of the castle except this one, says someone, and suddenly darkness, suddenly only darkness. In the living room, in the broken yard, in the back of the car as the lights go by. In the airport bathroom’s gurgle and flush, bathed in a pharmacy of unnatural light, my hands looking weird, my face weird, my feet too far away. I arrived in the city and you met me at the station, smiling in a way that made me frightened. Down the alley, around the arcade, up the stairs of the building to the little room with the broken faucets, your drawings, all your things, I looked out the window and said This doesn’t look that much different from home, because it didn’t, but then I noticed the black sky and all those lights. We were inside the train car when I started to cry. You were crying too, smiling and crying in a way that made me even more hysterical. You said I could have anything I wanted, but I just couldn’t say it out loud. Actually, you said Love, for you, is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s terrifying. No one will ever want to sleep with you. Okay, if you’re so great, you do it— here’s the pencil, make it work … If the window is on your right, you are in your own bed. If the window is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing river water. Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently we have had our difficulties and there are many things I want to ask you. I tried that one time, high school, second lunch, and then again, years later, in the chlorinated pool. I am still talking to you about help. I still do not have these luxuries. I have told you where I’m coming from, so put it together. I want more applesauce. I want more seats reserved for heroes. Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you. Quit milling around the yard and come inside.