I Love Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to I Love. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.
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Marilyn Monroe
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Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .
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C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)
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I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.
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Douglas Adams (The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time)
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As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.
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John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
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Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
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H. Jackson Brown Jr. (P.S. I Love You)
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I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.
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Pablo Neruda (100 Love Sonnets)
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There is no pretending," Jace said with absolute clarity. "I love you, and I will love you until I die, and if there is life after that, I'll love you then.
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Cassandra Clare (City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3))
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I love mankind ... it's people I can't stand!!
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Charles M. Schulz
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I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
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Pablo Neruda (100 Love Sonnets)
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You love me. Real or not real?" I tell him, "Real.
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Suzanne Collins (Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3))
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So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.
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Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
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There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.
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Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)
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If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.
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Alfred Tennyson
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Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.
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William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
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I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?
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Ernest Hemingway
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I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love.
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Marilyn Monroe
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When I look at my room, I see a girl who loves books.
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John Green (Looking for Alaska)
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And so the lion fell in love with the lamb…" he murmured. I looked away, hiding my eyes as I thrilled to the word. "What a stupid lamb," I sighed. "What a sick, masochistic lion.
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Stephenie Meyer (Twilight (The Twilight Saga, #1))
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I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.
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Jimi Hendrix (The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold as Love (Guitar Tabulature))
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I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough..
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Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)
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Have you fallen in love with the wrong person yet?' Jace said, "Unfortunately, Lady of the Haven, my one true love remains myself." ..."At least," she said, "you don't have to worry about rejection, Jace Wayland." "Not necessarily. I turn myself down occasionally, just to keep it interesting.
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Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
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So it's not gonna be easy. It's going to be really hard; we're gonna have to work at this everyday, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, everyday. You and me... everyday.
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Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)
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I love you. I am who I am because of you. You are every reason, every hope, and every dream I've ever had, and no matter what happens to us in the future, everyday we are together is the greatest day of my life. I will always be yours.
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Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)
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I finally understood what true love meant...love meant that you care for another person's happiness more than your own, no matter how painful the choices you face might be.
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Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)
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I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass.
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Maya Angelou
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Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.
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Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
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I don't trust people who don't love themselves and tell me, 'I love you.' ... There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.
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Maya Angelou
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In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.
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Jane Austen (Pride And Prejudice)
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I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it's the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It's probably the most important thing in a person.
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Audrey Hepburn
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He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.
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Emily BrontΓ« (Wuthering Heights)
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I would die for you. But I won't live for you.
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Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
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You are my best friend as well as my lover, and I do not know which side of you I enjoy the most. I treasure each side, just as I have treasured our life together.
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Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook (The Notebook, #1))
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I would always rather be happy than dignified.
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Charlotte BrontΓ« (Jane Eyre)
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I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.
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Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)
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I love you more than there are stars in the sky and fish in the sea.
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Nicholas Sparks
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I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.
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Markus Zusak (The Book Thief)
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Deep in the meadow, hidden far away A cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray Forget your woes and let your troubles lay And when it's morning again, they'll wash away Here it's safe, here it's warm Here the daisies guard you from every harm Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true Here is the place where I love you.
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Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
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When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.
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Mahatma Gandhi
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Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.
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Rumi (Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi)
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You can't force love, I realized. It's there or it isn't. If it's not there, you've got to be able to admit it. If it is there, you've got to do whatever it takes to protect the ones you love.
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Richelle Mead (Frostbite (Vampire Academy, #2))
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These woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.
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Robert Frost (Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening)
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The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!
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Jane Austen (Sense and Sensibility)
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Some people care too much. I think it's called love.
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A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh (Winnie-the-Pooh, #1))
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And I'm suppose to sit by while you date boys and fall in love with someone else, get married...?" His voice tightened. "And meanwhile, I'll die a little bit more every day, watching.
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Cassandra Clare (City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3))
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I might be in love with you." He smiles a little. "I'm waiting until I'm sure to tell you, though.
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Veronica Roth (Divergent (Divergent, #1))
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I have decided to stick to love...Hate is too great a burden to bear.
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Martin Luther King Jr. (A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches)
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The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds. And that's what you've given me. That's what I'd hoped to give you forever
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Nicholas Sparks
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I'm in love with you," he said quietly. "Augustus," I said. "I am," he said. He was staring at me, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you.
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John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
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I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
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Sarah Williams
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I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool themselves. They didn't bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn't argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn't.
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Marilyn Monroe
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If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.
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Emily BrontΓ« (Wuthering Heights)
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I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.
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Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones)
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If you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets.
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Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)
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I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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I am very interested and fascinated how everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other.
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Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
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I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane.
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John Green (Looking for Alaska)
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I no longer believed in the idea of soul mates, or love at first sight. But I was beginning to believe that a very few times in your life, if you were lucky, you might meet someone who was exactly right for you. Not because he was perfect, or because you were, but because your combined flaws were arranged in a way that allowed two separate beings to hinge together.
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Lisa Kleypas (Blue-Eyed Devil (Travises, #2))
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I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.
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Daphne Rae (Love Until It Hurts: The Work of Mother Teresa and Her Missionaries of Charity)
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I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.
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Robert Fulghum (All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts On Common Things)
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We fell in love, despite our differences, and once we did, something rare and beautiful was created. For me, love like that has only happened once, and that's why every minute we spent together has been seared in my memory. I'll never forget a single moment of it.
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Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)
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I spent my life folded between the pages of books. In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.
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Tahereh Mafi (Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1))
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What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again.
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Suzanne Collins (Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3))
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You are the answer to every prayer I've offered. You are a song, a dream, a whisper, and I don't know how I could have lived without you for as long as I have.
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Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook (The Notebook, #1))
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I think... if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.
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Leo Tolstoy (Anna Karenina)
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What I want is to be needed. What I need is to be indispensable to somebody. Who I need is somebody that will eat up all my free time, my ego, my attention. Somebody addicted to me. A mutual addiction.
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Chuck Palahniuk (Choke)
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Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)
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I can feel Peeta press his forehead into my temple and he asks, 'So now that you've got me, what are you going to do with me?' I turn into him. 'Put you somewhere you can't get hurt.
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Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
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This life is what you make it. No matter what, you're going to mess up sometimes, it's a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you're going to mess it up. Girls will be your friends - they'll act like it anyway. But just remember, some come, some go. The ones that stay with you through everything - they're your true best friends. Don't let go of them. Also remember, sisters make the best friends in the world. As for lovers, well, they'll come and go too. And baby, I hate to say it, most of them - actually pretty much all of them are going to break your heart, but you can't give up because if you give up, you'll never find your soulmate. You'll never find that half who makes you whole and that goes for everything. Just because you fail once, doesn't mean you're gonna fail at everything. Keep trying, hold on, and always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don't, then who will, sweetie? So keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life's a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about.
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Marilyn Monroe
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You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope...I have loved none but you.
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Jane Austen (Persuasion)
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You could have had anything else in the world, and you asked for me." She smiled up at him. Filthy as he was, covered in blood and dirt, he was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. "But I don't want anything else in the world.
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Cassandra Clare (City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3))
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I think you still love me, but we can’t escape the fact that I’m not enough for you. I knew this was going to happen. So I’m not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. I’m not angry, either. I should be, but I’m not. I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt, but I was wrong.
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Haruki Murakami (South of the Border, West of the Sun)
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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.
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Shana Abe
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What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.
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Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov)
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The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.
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Rumi (Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi) (The Illuminated Rumi)
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All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.
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Tahereh Mafi (Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1))
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I am coming to terms with the fact that loving someone requires a leap of faith, and that a soft landing is never guaranteed.
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Sarah Dessen (This Lullaby)
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I’d said it before and meant it: Alive or undead, the love of my life was a badass.
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Richelle Mead (Blood Promise (Vampire Academy, #4))
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Do you think I'm pretty? I think you're beautiful Beautiful? You are so beautiful, it hurts sometimes.
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Richelle Mead (Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy, #1))
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I was smiling yesterday,I am smiling today and I will smile tomorrow.Simply because life is too short to cry for anything.
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Santosh Kalwar (Quote Me Everyday)
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If pain must come, may it come quickly. Because I have a life to live, and I need to live it in the best way possible. If he has to make a choice, may he make it now. Then I will either wait for him or forget him.
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Paulo Coelho (By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept)
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There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.
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John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
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I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, He will not ask, 'How many good things have you done in your life?' rather He will ask, 'How much love did you put into what you did?
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Mother Teresa
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Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.
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Bob Marley
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I think if I've learned anything about friendship, it's to hang in, stay connected, fight for them, and let them fight for you. Don't walk away, don't be distracted, don't be too busy or tired, don't take them for granted. Friends are part of the glue that holds life and faith together. Powerful stuff.
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Jon Katz
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Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
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Marianne Williamson (A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles")
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And now I’m looking at you,” he said, β€œand you’re asking me if I still want you, as if I could stop loving you. As if I would want to give up the thing that makes me stronger than anything else ever has. I never dared give much of myself to anyone before – bits of myself to the Lightwoods, to Isabelle and Alec, but it took years to do it – but, Clary, since the first time I saw you, I have belonged to you completely. I still do. If you want me.
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Cassandra Clare (City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3))
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I’m here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay with you. If you need the medication again, go ahead and take itβ€”I will love you through that, as well. If you don’t need the medication, I will love you, too. There’s nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me.
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Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)
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I have something I need to tell you," he says. I run my fingers along the tendons in his hands and look back at him. "I might be in love with you." He smiles a little. "I'm waiting until I'm sure to tell you, though." "That's sensible of you," I say, smiling too. "We should find some paper so you can make a list or a chart or something." I feel his laughter against my side, his nose sliding along my jaw, his lips pressing my ear. "Maybe I'm already sure," he says, "and I just don't want to frighten you." I laugh a little. "Then you should know better." "Fine," he says. "Then I love you.
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Veronica Roth (Divergent (Divergent, #1))
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I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart)I am never without it (anywhere I go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling) I fear no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet)I want no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true) and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)
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E.E. Cummings
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For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.
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Charles Bukowski
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We live and breathe words. .... It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone. They could be honest with me, and I with them. Reading your words, what you wrote, how you were lonely sometimes and afraid, but always brave; the way you saw the world, its colors and textures and sounds, I felt--I felt the way you thought, hoped, felt, dreamt. I felt I was dreaming and thinking and feeling with you. I dreamed what you dreamed, wanted what you wanted--and then I realized that truly I just wanted you.
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Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Prince (The Infernal Devices, #2))
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I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been a victim of my own optimism.
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Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)
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It hurts to let go. Sometimes it seems the harder you try to hold on to something or someone the more it wants to get away. You feel like some kind of criminal for having felt, for having wanted. For having wanted to be wanted. It confuses you, because you think that your feelings were wrong and it makes you feel so small because it's so hard to keep it inside when you let it out and it doesn't coma back. You're left so alone that you can't explain. Damn, there's nothing like that, is there? I've been there and you have too. You're nodding your head.
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Henry Rollins (The Portable Henry Rollins)
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I'm coming back into focus when Caesar asks him if he has a girlfriend back home. Peeta hesitates, then gives an unconvincing shake of his head. Handsome lad like you. There must be some special girl. Come on, what’s her name?" says Caesar. Peeta sighs. "Well, there is this one girl. I’ve had a crush on her ever since I can remember. But I’m pretty sure she didn’t know I was alive until the reaping." Sounds of sympathy from the crowd. Unrequited love they can relate to. She have another fellow?" asks Caesar. I don’t know, but a lot of boys like her," says Peeta. So, here’s what you do. You win, you go home. She can’t turn you down then, eh?" says Caesar encouragingly. I don’t think it’s going to work out. Winning...won’t help in my case," says Peeta. Why ever not?" says Caesar, mystified. Peeta blushes beet red and stammers out. "Because...because...she came here with me.
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Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
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Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.
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Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones)
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The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.
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Stephen King
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You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
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Mary Oliver
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We’re all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you’ve been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there’s no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way. But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. And it isn’t until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problemsβ€”the ones that make you truly who you areβ€”that we’re ready to find a lifelong mate. Only then do you finally know what you’re looking for. You’re looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: it's got to be the right wrong personβ€”someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, β€œThis is the problem I want to have.” I will find that special person who is wrong for me in just the right way.
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Andrew Boyd (Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe)
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Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: β€œI like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because β€œI like strong women” is code for β€œI hate strong women.”)
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Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl)