Rivals To Lovers Quotes

She is the embodiment of a bad decision. The twin of danger and desire. The fine line between deadly and divine. And I can feel myself drowning.

I think you're obsessed with me, Sadie Wen.

those who govern ought not to be lovers of the task? For, if they are, there will be rival lovers, and they will fight.

It’s a brilliant song! C’mon…’Every day is like survival. You’re my lover, not my rival.’ What could be more meaningful than that? (Jesse)

Julius isn't just a boy. He's my enemy. My equal. My point of comparison. He's the one I'm constantly trying to outrun, to outsmart, to impress.

I was too young, then, to know that dead lovers are the toughest rivals.

Marynka was Midday. Her opposite. Her rival. Her. . . Was there even a word for a rival who you also wanted to kiss? Whatever she was, Marynka was the very last person she should be having those sorts of thoughts about.

His ministrations were tender, his eyes hooded as he seemed to withhold certain emotions from her. She allowed him his secrets, and took what he gave with a greed that shocked her with its intensity. But he never had to know. He never had to glimpse how deeply she felt for him, or discover the secret she had always suspected and finally admitted to herself. She loved him. Completely. Every part of him, good and bad, her friend and lover and partner and rival. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, giving him everything, even though she knew he didn’t want her. She crammed the knowledge to a secret place in- side. Then realized she’d take whatever he gave, even though it would never be enough.

I rarely share this part of my life with others, but I want to tell it to you now. A piece of armor, because I trust you. A glint of falling steel, because I feel safe with you.

For me the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back: sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides. And this harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman. For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no real woman can rival. Among those shadowy brides he is always adored, always the perfect lover: no demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity. In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself . . . . And it is not only the faculty of love which is thus sterilized, forced back on itself, but also the faculty of imagination. The true exercise of imagination, in my view, is (a) To help us to understand other people (b) To respond to, and, some of us, to produce, art. But it has also a bad use: to provide for us, in shadowy form, a substitute for virtues, successes, distinctions etc. which ought to be sought outside in the real world—e.g. picturing all I’d do if I were rich instead of earning and saving. Masturbation involves this abuse of imagination in erotic matters (which I think bad in itself) and thereby encourages a similar abuse of it in all spheres. After all, almost the main work of life is to come out of our selves, out of the little, dark prison we are all born in. Masturbation is to be avoided as all things are to be avoided which retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love the prison.

Who are you? Where do you fit into poetry and myth? Do you know who I think you are, Ramsay? I think you are Fifth Business. You don't know what that is? Well, in opera in a permanent company of the kind we keep up in Europe you must have a prima donna -- always a soprano, always the heroine, often a fool; and a tenor who always plays the lover to her; and then you must have a contralto, who is a rival to the soprano, or a sorceress or something; and a basso, who is the villain or the rival or whatever threatens the tenor. "So far, so good. But you cannot make a plot work without another man, and he is usually a baritone, and he is called in the profession Fifth Business, because he is the odd man out, the person who has no opposite of the other sex. And you must have Fifth Business because he is the one who knows the secret of the hero's birth, or comes to the assistance of the heroine when she thinks all is lost, or keeps the hermitess in her cell, or may even be the cause of somebody's death if that is part of the plot. The prima donna and the tenor, the contralto and the basso, get all the best music and do all the spectacular things, but you cannot manage the plot without Fifth Business! It is not spectacular, but it is a good line of work, I can tell you, and those who play it sometimes have a career that outlasts the golden voices. Are you Fifth Business? You had better find out.

Every work of art stems from a wound in the soul of the artist. When a person is hurt, his immune system comes into operation, and a self-healing process takes place, mental and physical." He called art "a psychological component of the auto-immune system that gives expression to the healing process.

when it is but it ain't Some of us love badly. Sometimes the love is the type of love that implodes. Folds in on itself. Eats its insides. Turns wine to poison. Behaves poorly in restaurants. Drinks. Kisses other people. Comes back to your bed at 4am smelling like everything outside. Asks about your ex. Is jealous of your ex. Thinks everyone a rival. Some of us love others badly, love ourselves worse. Some of us love horrid, love beastly. Love sick love anti light. Sometimes the love can’t go home at night, can’t sleep with itself, cannot contain itself, catches fire, destroys the stomach, strips buildings, goes missing. Punches. Smashes heirlooms. Tells lies. The best lies. F*s around. Writes poems, impresses people. Chases lovers into corners. Leaves them longing. Sea sick. Says yes. Means anything but. Tricks the body. Kills the body. Dances wild and walks away, smiling.

Of all the plagues a lover bears, Sure rivals are the worst I can endure my own despair, But not another’s hope.

A woman knows everything about her rival. Her habits, her perfume, her tastes. When a lover turns up at his mistress’s, he should feel like he’s on holiday, not back home.

If I ever decide to become a male tart, I'll use that quote on my trade cards. Tristan Montgomery: a hundred times better than your previous lover

You are cruel even in love," Iona whispers, "How can you make me feel this way? I ought to hate you. I wanted to hate you.

Parents feel a great deal of responsibility for the way their children turn out, but there is very little a parent can do that will remotely rival the influence a friend or lover can have.

The heart of the jealous knows the best and the most satisfying love, that of the other's bed, where the rival perfects the lover's imperfections. Fancy gallops to take part in that duel, unconstrained by any certain articulation of the laws of that unseen game.

To all my readers, from the AO3 days to where we are now." -Dedication Page

he wrote of his opposition toward harsh punishment for rape, “on account of the temptation women would be under to make it the instrument of vengeance against an inconstant lover, and of disappointment to a rival.” The man who had authored the Declaration of Independence was writing to the man who would author the Bill of Rights—to warn of the woman scorned, crying rape.

We are each of us made up of all the times in our lives,’ she said, ‘and there are plenty of times when we aren’t fully ourselves. But that doesn’t mean those times aren’t important or beautiful.

The search tells him Pyramus and Thisbe were lovers in a Greek myth, children of rival families, forbidden to be together. Their only way to speak to each other was through a thin crack in the wall built between them.

The accumulation of gold in the treasury of private individuals is the ruin of timocracy; they invent illegal modes of expenditure; for what do they or their wives care about the law? Yes, indeed. And then one, seeing another grow rich, seeks to rival him, and thus the great mass of the citizens become lovers of money. Likely enough. And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think of making a fortune the less they think of virtue; for when riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance, the one always rises as the other falls. True. And in proportion as riches and rich men are honoured in the State, virtue and the virtuous are dishonoured. Clearly. And what is honoured is cultivated, and that which has no honour is neglected.

I now lament my lover, and of all my joys have nothing but the painful memory that they are past. Now learn, all you my rivals who once viewed my happiness with jealous eyes, that he you once envied me can never more be mine. I loved him; my love was his crime and the cause of his punishment. My beauty once charmed him; pleased with each other we passed our brightest days in tranquility and happiness. If that were a crime, 'tis a crime I am yet fond of, and I have no other regret save that against my will I must now be innocent.

She stared at me like I'd lost my mind. "I'm a f*cking human being! You can't just kidnap me like this and expect me to do whatever the hell you say." "I can. And I did. And you will." Fire warmed her gray eyes. "Or what? You'll kill me?" She pushed herself up from the floor, and I could practically see her entire body vibrating with her anger. It was fucking beautiful. A rage that rivaled my own. "Go ahead," she spit the words at me. "Death would be preferable to staying here with you and being your puppet." God, she was stunning. And infuriating. My own men didn't mouth off to me the way this woman did. I crossed the room and stood directly in front of her before she had time to run. Grabbing her jaw, I forced her to look at me. "Keep mouthing off to me, Veda. I dare you." Taking a step back, she jerked her chin from my grasp, then slapped me across the face. Hard. A deadly calm came over me. Slowly, I turned my head back around until our gazes clashed. Whatever she saw there wiped the rebellious look from her face. A heartbeat passed. Then another...

They lost their sense of reality, the notion of time, the rhythm of daily habits. They closed the doors and windows again so as not to waste time getting undressed and they walked about the house as Remedios the Beauty had wanted to do and they would roll around naked in the mud of the courtyard, and one afternoon they almost drowned as they made love in the cistern. In a short time they did more damage than the red ants: they destroyed the furniture in the parlor, in their madness they tore to shreds the hammock that had resisted the sad bivouac loves of Colonel Aureliano Buendía and they disemboweled the mattresses and emptied them on the floor as they suffocated in storms of cotton. Although Aureliano was just as ferocious a lover as his rival, it was Amaranta ?rsula who ruled in that paradise of disaster with her mad genius and her lyrical voracity, as if she had concentrated in her love the unconquerable energy that her great-great-grandmother had given to the making of little candy animals. And yet, while she was singing with pleasure and dying with laughter over her own inventions, Aureliano was becoming more and more absorbed and silent, for his passion was self-centered and burning. Nevertheless, they both reached such extremes of virtuosity that when they became exhausted from excitement, they would take advantage of their fatigue. They would give themselves over to the worship of their bodies, discovering that the rest periods of love had unexplored possibilities, much richer than those of desire. While he would rub Amaranta ?rsula’s erect breasts with egg whites or smooth her elastic thighs and peach-like stomach with cocoa butter, she would play with Aureliano’s portentous creature as if it were a doll and would paint clown’s eyes on it with her lipstick and give it a Turk’s mustache with her eyebrow pencil, and would put on organza bow ties and little tinfoil hats. One night they daubed themselves from head to toe with peach jam and licked each other like dogs and made mad love on the floor of the porch, and they were awakened by a torrent of carnivorous ants who were ready to eat them alive.

So time drew on to the War of the Ring, and the sons of Denethor grew to manhood. Boromir, five years the elder, beloved by his father, was like him in face and pride, but in little else. Rather he was a man after the sort of King Eärnur of old, taking no wife and delighting chiefly in arms; fearless and strong, but caring little for lore, save the tales of old battles. Faramir the younger was like him in looks but otherwise in mind. He read the hearts of men as shrewdly as his father, but what he read moved him sooner to pity than to scorn. He was gentle in bearing, and a lover of lore and of music, and therefore by many in those days his courage was judged less than his brother’s. But it was not so, except that he did not seek glory in danger without a purpose. He welcomed Gandalf at such times as he came to the City, and he learned what he could from his wisdom; and in this as in many other matters he displeased his father. ‘Yet between the brothers there was great love, and had been since childhood, when Boromir was the helper and protector of Faramir. No jealousy or rivalry had arisen between them since, for their father’s favour or for the praise of men. It did not seem possible to Faramir that anyone in Gondor could rival Boromir, heir of Denethor, Captain of the White Tower; and of like mind was Boromir. Yet it proved otherwise at the test. But of all that befell these three in the War of the Ring much is said elsewhere.

Henry’s cursive. Dear Thisbe, I wish there weren’t a wall. Love, Pyramus He fumbles his phone out so fast he almost drops it on the floor and smashes it again. The search tells him Pyramus and Thisbe were lovers in a Greek myth, children of rival families, forbidden to be together. Their only way to speak to each other was through a thin crack in the wall built between them.

May showers enrich thy happy soil, Fair land, where fanes & towers arise: On thee let sainted pilgrims pour The richest blessings of the skies. The wave that round thy bosom plays, Conscious of its endeared retreat, When the rude tempest rocks thy domes, In sigh resigns its happy seat. Yet urged another glance to steal Of thy loved form so good so fair, Flies to avoid the painful view Of rival lovers basking hence.

I have to let go of all comparison, all rivalry and competition, and surrender to the Father’s love. This requires a leap of faith because I have little experience of non-comparing love. I can only remain in the resentful complaint that results from my comparisons. In the light of God I can finally see my neighbor as my brother, as the one who belongs as much to God as I do. But outside of God’s house, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, lovers and friends become rivals and even enemies; each perpetually plagued by jealousies, suspicions, and resentments.

Il avait pris le temps de l’analyser sous tous les angles et il aurait pu la reconnaître parmi des milliers de personnes. Il ne pouvait pas nier qu’il la trouvait intrigante… Et il n’était pas du genre à refouler ses fantasmes. Il savait que Lee le détestait, mais lui, il ne l’avait pas oubliée. Comment pourrait-il l’oublier ? Depuis le tournoi, il n’avait jamais oublié la flamme qu’il avait vue dans ses yeux au moment de sa défaite. Il l’avait écrasée et il n’éprouvait pas une once de culpabilité… Elle le méritait, ce n’était qu’une petite vantarde. Ce désir qu’il éprouvait pour elle aurait dû se dissiper depuis autant d’années, et pourtant, il brûlait toujours en lui. Il était même devenu plus intense, plus fou. Il se réjouissait de pouvoir la traquer, il adorait jouer.

I believe you have my umbrella," he says, almost out of breath but wearing a grin that has too much wolf in it to be properly sheepish. Celia stares up at him in surprise. At first she wonders what on earth Chandresh's assistant is doing in Prauge, as she has never seen him outside London. Then comes the question of how he could possess such an umbrella. As she stairs at him, confused, the pieces of the puzzle begin to shift together. She remembers every encounter she had with the man now standing before her in the rain, recalling the distress he had exhibited at her audition, the years of glances and comments she had read as no more than coy flirtation. And the constant impression as though he is not really there, blending so well into the background that she would occasionally forget he was in the room.

Now, if we are made for heaven, the desire for our proper place will be already in us, but not yet attached to the true object, and will even appear as the rival of that object ... If a transtemporal, transfinite good is our real destiny, then any other good on which our desire fixes must be in some degree fallacious, must bear at best only a symbolical relation to what will truly satisfy. In speaking of this desire for our own faroff country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a � name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter.

The Second Noble Truth is more hopeful: suffering has an origin. Everything in this world is interdependent, linked in a great chain of cause and effect, so suffering must come from somewhere. Buddhists identify twelve links in this chain of “dependent origination” (pratitya-samutpada) but the key links are ignorance, thirst, and grasping. We suffer because we close our eyes to the way the world really is. We pretend we are independent when we are really interdependent. We pretend that changing things are unchanging. And we desperately desire the world and the people who populate it to be as we imagine it (and them) to be. And so we suffer when our spouses take up new interests, or when our favorite (and perfect just as it was) old-fashioned ice cream store puts up a ridiculous Web site with a stupid new logo, or when the brand new T-bird we are proudly driving home from the Ford dealership is hit by a rock thrown by a six-year-old kid who would go on to write this book (true story). We suffer because we desperately grasp after people, places, and things, as if they can redeem us from our suffering. We suffer because we cling to beliefs and judgments, not least beliefs in gods, and judgments that this friend or that enemy is morally bankrupt. Today “you have changed” is an explanation one lover gives to another as she is walking out the door. In Buddhism, “you have changed” is a description of what is happening every moment of every day. The

We are lovers of beauty without extravagance, and lovers of wisdom without unmanliness. Wealth to us is not mere material for vainglory but an opportunity for achievement; and poverty we think it no disgrace to acknowledge but a real degradation to make no effort to overcome.... Let us draw strength, not merely from twice-told arguments—how fair and noble a thing it is to show courage in battle—but from the busy spectacle of our great city's life as we have it before us day by day, falling in love with her as we see her, and remembering that all this greatness she owes to men with the fighter's daring, the wise man's understanding of his duty, and the good man's self-discipline in its performance—to men who, if they failed in any ordeal, disdained to deprive the city of their services, but sacrificed their lives as the best offerings on her behalf. So they gave their bodies to the commonwealth and received, each for his own memory, praise that will never die, and with it the grandest of all sepulchres, not that in which their mortal bones are laid, but a home in the minds of men, where their glory remains fresh to stir to speech or action as the occasion comes by. For the whole earth is a sepulchre of famous men; and their story is not graven only on stone over their native earth, but lives on far away, without visible symbol, woven into the stuff of other men's lives. For you now it remains to rival what they have done and, knowing the secret of happiness to be freedom and the secret of freedom a brave heart, not idly to stand aside from the enemy's onset.

and realized it was smarter to disappear. Even Royal took a turn. He told me about a life consumed with vanity, with material things, with ambition. He told me about the only daughter of a powerful man—exactly what kind of power this man wielded, Royal hadn’t entirely understood—and how Royal had planned to marry her and become heir to the dynasty. How the beautiful daughter pretended to love him to please her father, and then how she had watched when her lover from a rival criminal syndicate had Royal beaten to death, how she’d laughed aloud the whole time. He told me about the revenge he’d gotten. Royal was the least careful with his words. He told me about losing his family, and how none of this was worth what he’d lost. Edythe had whispered Eleanor’s name; he’d growled once and left. I think it must have been while Royal or Eleanor was talking that Archie watched Joss’s video from the dance studio. When Royal was gone, Archie took his spot. At first I wasn’t sure what they were talking about, because only Edythe was speaking out loud, but eventually I caught up. Archie was searching right there on his laptop, trying to narrow down the options of where he’d been kept in his human life. I was glad he didn’t seem to mention anything else about the tape—the focus was all on his past. I was trying to remember how to use my voice so that I could stop him if he tried to say anything about the rest of it. I hoped Archie was smart enough to have destroyed the tape before Edythe could watch. The stories helped me think of other things, prepare myself, while the fire burned, but I was only able to pay partial attention. My mind was cataloguing the fire, experiencing it in new ways. It was amazing how each inch of my skin, each millimeter, was so distinct. It was like I could feel all my cells burning individually. I could feel the difference between the pain in the walls of my lungs, and the way the fire felt in the soles of my feet, inside my eyeballs, and down my spine. All the different agonies clearly separated.

So are you planning on dressing me in addition to everything else?” she asked once they’d cleared a challenging rise. “I planned to pack as much as I could this morning, so you could sleep later,” he lowered his voice, “or take care of what went unfinished last night.” He’d amazed himself by behaving so unselfishly as that. Her unfulfilled desire made it more likely that he’d get her into bed with him, and yet, he couldn’t stand to think of her suffering. “I was attempting to be considerate. Though I’ve little experience with it.” “I’m not talking to you about this. I’m just not.” “I can feel your need as strong as my own.” “Maybe I do have these needs—doesn’t mean you’re the one I’ll choose to help me work them out.” Her gaze drifted to Cade, who was greedily chugging water. His voice low and seething, Bowe said, “You regard him with an appraising eye one more time, Mariketa, and you’re going to get that demon killed. All he wants is to ‘attempt’ you. Do you ken what that means?” “In fact, I do ken what it means. In the throes, you know. One of my boyfriends was a demon.” “Boyfriends?” He frowned. “You mean lovers. How bloody many have you had?” He stopped. “Are you free with yourself, then? With other males? Because that’ll be ending—” “What’d you think?” she asked over her shoulder. “That I was a virgin?” “You’re only twenty-three,” he said, sounding very stodgy, even to himself. “And I try no’ to think of any male before me. But if you were no’ an innocent, then I’d hoped it would have been once, in the dark, with a ham-handed human who was so bad you had to stifle a yawn or fight against laughing.” She shrugged. “I’m sure the number of notches in my bedpost can’t compare to yours.” “Aye, but I’m twelve hundred years old! Even if I had one female a year, you’d understand how they could accumulate.” “Well, I am young.” Just as he felt a flicker of ease, she murmured in a sexy voice, “But, baby, I’ve been busy.” His fists clenched. “Jealous?” She probably wouldn’t think he’d admit to it, but in a low tone, he said, “Aye, I envy any man that’s had his hands on you.” She gave him an enigmatic, studying expression. “Now, if I guess the number you’ve taken into your bed, then you’ll tell me if I’m right.” She hastily faced forward once more. “Not playing. Get bent.” He narrowed his eyes. “One. You’ve had one.” Her shoulders stiffened barely perceptibly, and he wanted to sag with relief. “Because any male worthy of you would kill a rival who tried to steal you from him. I’m guessing the demon was your first and last. And how did you get him to let you go, then?” “What if I told you I was still seeing him?” Bowen shook his head. “No’ considering the way you were with me that first night. Besides, if he allowed you to enter the Hie without being there to guard you, he does no’ deserve you. When we return, I’ll kill him on principle.

The lust of property, and love: what different associations each of these ideas evoke! and yet it might be the same impulse twice named: on the one occasion disparaged from the standpoint of those already possessing (in whom the impulse has attained something of repose, who are now apprehensive for the safety of their "possession"); on the other occasion viewed from the standpoint of the unsatisfied and thirsty, and therefore glorified as "good." Our love of our neighbor, is it not a striving after new property? And similarly our love of knowledge, of truth; and in general all the striving after novelties? We gradually become satiated with the old and securely possessed, and again stretch out our hands; even the finest landscape in which we live for three months is no longer certain of our love, and any kind of more distant coast excites our covetousness: the possession for the most part becomes smaller through possessing. Our pleasure in ourselves seeks to maintain itself by always transforming something new into ourselves, that is just possessing. To become satiated with a possession, that is to become satiated with ourselves. (One can also suffer from excess, even the desire to cast away, to share out, may assume the honorable name of "love.") When we see any one suffering, we willingly utilize the opportunity then afforded to take possession of him; the beneficent and sympathetic man, for example, does this; he also calls the desire for new possession awakened in him, by the name of "love," and has enjoyment in it, as in a new acquisition suggesting itself to him. The love of the sexes, however, betrays itself most plainly as the striving after possession: the lover wants the unconditioned, sole possession of the person longed for by him; he wants just as absolute power over her soul as over the body; he wants to be loved solely, and to dwell and rule in the other soul as what is highest and most to be desired. When one considers that this means precisely to exclude all the world from a precious possession, a happiness, and an enjoyment; when one considers that the lover has in view the impoverishment and privation of all other rivals, and would like to become the dragon of his golden hoard, as the most inconsiderate and selfish of all "conquerors "and exploiters; when one considers finally that to the lover himself, the whole world besides appears indifferent, colorless, and worthless, and that he is ready to make every sacrifice, disturb every arrangement, and put every other interest behind his own, one is verily surprised that this ferocious lust of property and injustice of sexual love should have been glorified and deified to such an extent at all times; yea, that out of this love the conception of love as the antithesis of egoism should have been derived, when it is perhaps precisely the most unqualified expression of egoism. Here, evidently, the non-possessors and desirers have determined the usage of language, there were, of course, always too many of them. Those who have been favored with much possession and satiety, have, to be sure, dropped a word now and then about the "raging demon," as, for instance, the most lovable and most beloved of all the Athenians Sophocles; but Eros always laughed at such revilers, they were always his greatest favorites. There is, of course, here and there on this terrestrial sphere a kind of sequel to love, in which that covetous longing of two persons for one another has yielded to a new desire and covetousness, to a common, higher thirst for a superior ideal standing above them: but who knows this love? Who has experienced it? Its right name — friendship.

The men in her life were clean-cut, well-bred, reliable, unpretentious and good company. “Diana is an Uptown girl who has never gone in for downtown men,” observes Rory Scott. If they wore a uniform or had been cast aside by Sarah so much the better. She felt rather sorry for Sarah’s rejects and often tried, unsuccessfully, to be asked out by them. So she did washing for William van Straubenzee, one of Sarah’s old boyfriends, and ironed the shirts of Rory Scott, who had then starred in a television documentary about Trooping the Colour, and Diana regularly stayed for weekends at his parents’ farm near Petworth, West Sussex. She continued caring for his wardrobe during her royal romance, on one occasion delivering a pile of freshly laundered shirts to the back entrance of St. James’s Palace, where Rory was on duty, in order to avoid the press. James Boughey was another military man who took her out to restaurants and the theatre and Diana visited Simon Berry and Adam Russell at their rented house on the Blenheim estate when they were undergraduates at Oxford. There were lots of boyfriends but none became lovers. The sense of destiny which Diana had felt from an early age shaped, albeit unconsciously, her relationships with the opposite sex. She says: “I knew I had to keep myself tidy for what lay ahead.” As Carolyn observes: “I’m not a terrible spiritual person but I do believe that she was meant to do what she is doing and she certainly believes that. She was surrounded by this golden aura which stopped men going any further, whether they would have liked to or not, it never happened. She was protected somehow by a perfect light.” It is a quality noted by her old boyfriends. Rory Scott says roguishly: “She was very sexually attractive and the relationship was not a platonic one as far as I was concerned but it remained that way. She was always a little aloof, you always felt that there was a lot you would never know about her.” In the summer of 1979 another boyfriend, Adam Russell, completed his language degree at Oxford and decided to spend a year travelling. He left unspoken the fact that he hoped the friendship between himself and Diana could be renewed and developed upon his return. When he arrived home a year later it was too late. A friend told him: “You’ve only got one rival, the Prince of Wales.

It is God's jealous love that both unnerves us and draws us to Him. His relentless pursuit, His fierce hatred of any rival, and His incomprehensible willingness to anguish on our behalf captures our heart for His love. His jealousy is our shield; it is our promise of eternal protection and passionate exclusivity. it is our confidence that the divine Lover will win His bride.

Too much of our cultural analysis is rooted in thinking-thingism: we scan culture, listening for “messages,” bent on rooting out “false” teachings. But if we are first and foremost lovers, and if our action is overwhelmingly governed by our unconscious habits, then intellectual threats might not be the most important. Indeed, we could be so fixated on intellectual temptations that we don’t realize our hearts are being liturgically co-opted by rival empires all the while. The point of looking at culture through a liturgical lens is to jolt us into a new recognition of who we are and where we are.

Star crossed lovers” A term used to describe two souls whose love is doomed to end in tragedy. Why? Because they defy the ethereal wisdom of the universe, the ancient laws of which are written in the constellations themselves. These people are by no means evil, it’s just that they together create a power that rivals that of any other, and it's that power in the end that ultimately destroys them.

I presume this is part of your erotic art collection?" she mused out loud. "It is most beautifully done; only look at the masterful brushwork and the lush, luminous colors. Curiously enough, it reminds me of Boucher, though I suppose it was done by a less well-known artist." He lifted a brow. "I am impressed, madam, since Boucher is exactly who painted the work. You do indeed know your art. The provenance says he did this painting as a private commission for a wealthy, anonymous patron. I acquired it at an equally private auction a few years ago and have enjoyed viewing it ever since." "Well, if this painting is representative of your collection, I would guess that all the works must have scandalous, clandestine origins due to the lurid nature of the subject matter." "Actually, this is one of the less provocative pieces," he informed her. "The majority of my collection is housed in a separate gallery devoted strictly to erotic art and literature. A couple of the maids won't even go inside to clean." Esme turned her gaze on him. "Is it really that bad?" "Or that good, depending on your point of view." He grinned. "I'll show it to you sometime, if you'd like. After all, you are an art lover. Come to think, perhaps I should frame the naked sketch you did of me and add it to the collection. Or would you prefer to keep it and hang it on your bedroom wall?" "I believe I will leave it exactly where it is, else the entire house know what you look like without clothing. Although knowing you, you'd likely be as proud as Bacchus here and every bit as shameless." His grin widened. "Yes, but only because certain parts of me actually do rival the gods.

Two star-crossed lovers from rival mobster bosses fall in love against their families’ wishes

Are you happy now, you terrible excuse for a rival?

For me the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back; sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides. And this harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman. For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no woman can rival. Among those shadowy brides he is always adored, always the perfect lover; no demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity. In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself…After all, almost the main work of life is to come out of our selves, out of the little dark prison we are all born in. Masturbation is to be avoided as all things are to be avoided which retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love the prison.

What an opportunity the senior Bachchan lost to make a difference to the prejudiced heads by making a statement against the mangalik nonsense. Oh how small really the Big B is, and how big the media made Diana the small. It’s incredible how her quest for lust was portrayed as her search for love! No faulting her taking a lover on the rebound as her man thrust a rival into her marital life but for the media to picture her bed hopping as her craving for love is galling indeed. Why in picturing Diana as the icon of love the media made lust a synonym of love and what’s worse, it made a villain out of her man who embodies the best of love that is constancy.

Well, you found me," I said. "I guess you're going to call and report me to Mr. Louis now..." "Eventually," she said, "but first I wanted to tell you that I know how you feel... if you'll stop being a total jerk for two seconds. Can you?" "I don't know," I told her. "My longest period of not being a jerk is only one second, two might be stretching it, but I'll try my best.

« Sois plus gentille avec moi, la prochaine fois ! » s’exclama-t-il en s’approchant d’elle. Il l’envoûtait totalement, « Je suis certain qu’on pourrait vraiment bien s’amuser tous les deux, mais seulement si tu as apprends à être gentille… » murmura-t-il dans le creux de son oreille avant de s’éloigner et de la laisser seule contre le tronc d’arbre.

If Ren was hell, then Kai was paradise; and Lee's soul was stuck in purgatory, ripped apart by their opposite pulls.

In a garden of thorns, Ren saw the flower blooming despite the hardships. Kai has never seen the thorns; all he's ever witnessed are the beautiful petals... and I can't bear the thought of Kai prickling a finger and bleeding on my account.

« Mince alors… » gloussa-t-il bruyamment en buvant une autre gorgée de vin, « J’aurais voulu t’affronter encore une fois. Que c’était excitant ! Toi et moi, quel dangereux duel ! » Il la regarda de la tête aux pieds puis ajouta: « Le duel rêvé. » Et voilà : il était encore une fois narquois et provocateur. Lee essayait d’oublier le passé, pourquoi devait-il encore la narguer ? Comment était-elle censée passer à autre chose ? « Arrête ça… » Elle se mordit la langue, prit une profonde inspiration et évita de lui répondre comme elle l’aurait fait auparavant, « Je suis venue m’excuser pour mon comportement puéril et te remercier pour ton geste. Je veux qu’on soit bien d’accord… Je ne suis pas venue pour devenir ton amie, Ren. » répondit-elle d’un ton ferme. « Je ne t’ai pas demandé d’être mon amie. »

Too much of our cultural analysis is rooted in thinking-thingism: we scan culture, listening for “messages,” bent on rooting out “false” teachings. But if we are first and foremost lovers, and if our action is overwhelmingly governed by our unconscious habits, then intellectual threats might not be the most important. Indeed, we could be so fixated on intellectual temptations that we don’t realize our hearts are being liturgically co-opted by rival empires all the while.

it is never wise to offend a musician. And choose your lovers wisely.

The difficulty of the amorous project is in this: "Just show me who to love then get out of my way!" Countless episodes in which I fall in love with someone loved by my best friend: every rival has first been a master, a guide, a barker, a mediator.

That dissatisfaction you feel so guilty about because isn’t it your own fault that your life is the way it is?

Because it wasn’t simple any more, not now that it was real. Real things aren’t simple. Real things have complications and compromises and failures.

Browsing bookshops had always made her feel safe. Grounded. Small, but in a good way, like there was a universe surrounding her to be discovered slowly, calmly, knowing that she’d never run out of things to learn and see.

Being able to help someone is a gift. It’s a privilege when someone lets you see that they need you.

How pitiful,” Ariadne says, her eyes filled with resentment, “To be infatuated with someone who bests you at every turn. Feel free to continue dreaming of me as you have, because that is the only way you could have me. I shall be the superior witch at this school and win Morgan’s pendant, as is my right. The victory will only be sweeter knowing how much you want me while I do it.

I have caught a nymph,” Ariadne grins, “Now what shall I do to her?

All of this to say—it is never wise to offend a musician. And choose your lovers wisely.

Nigeria's story has not only been about its elites. Nigerians often treated elected civilian leaders and military dictators as two rival lovers courting them. When civilians are in power, Nigerians often nostalgically recall the supposed discipline and stability of military rule, yet, when suffering under military dictatorship, they campaigned for democracy as a utopian salvation. Being in Nigeria sometimes feels like being on a frightening rollercoaster rideWhile on the ride one will scream in terror and want the ride to endHoweveronce it ends, one wants to get back on and experience the adrenaline rush again. Along with their adrenaline addiction, many Nigerians harbour a Messiah complex that their country is potentially a great one, if only power would fall into the hands of a visionary leader

I prefer salty over sweet. I prefer sunsets over sunrises, but only because I love to watch the constellations begin to burn. My favorite season is autumn, because my mum and I both believed that’s the only time when magic can be tasted in the air. I am a devout tea lover and can drink my weight in it.

The arrival of a new lover often destroys the previous love. Don’t break up abruptly. Pretend that everything is fine, be calm, smile, do not despair, do not complain, do not harass her, do not wait in front of her door, and never lie in the street, even by accident! Destroy the letters and images of the loved one. But do not hate her! Hate is really another guise of love, and only when you are able to give an honest hug to your former rival will you have been healed. The rest are trifles.

Love's Great Adventure by Stewart Stafford Look out for the wandering eye, And the fervour that follows it, A jewel clasped is the first part, Guarding against theft is trickier. Surreptitious teases acted out then, The Rubicon crossed and drained, Love, blind to impediment boundaries, Prized contagion spread as lightning. Rival houses intrude to spoil it, To still the fluttering of butterflies, And the bosom of Eros heaving, Unstoppable to every homo sapien. Here, I'll act as Cupid's emissary, Whisper lovers' spells in my ear, I'll parrot them to her to the letter, So lured, she'll have me over you. Groggy from humid moon nectar, On summertime clouded visions, A second an hour, as a day a year, Arousal of fire in swelled chests. Stallions of the Venus chariot, Borne freely to the new Arcadia, Feet skimming over terra firma, The youthful mask smothers all. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

He snapped his shields into place, and straightened to force the challenge. Releasing the full measure of his power, he shuddered under the exquisite pleasure of it, feeling it flow out and around him in a rush of ecstasy that rivaled sex. In his mind’s eye, the power embraced him, caressing his skin like a lover, before soaring into the night to surround him.

What breeds more close communion between subjects than allegiance to the same queen? between brothers, than duty to the same father? between the devout, than adoration for the same Deity? And shall not worship for the same beauty be likewise a bond of love between the worshippers? and each lover see in his rival not an enemy, but a fellow-sufferer?

Mary was surrounded in her childhood by powerful women: the French Queen Catherine de Medici; the King’s lover, advisor and friend, Diane de Poitiers; Mary’s grandmother, Antoinette de Guise and finally her own mother, the Dowager Queen of Scotland. In direct contrast, Elizabeth’s earliest experiences were of the transience and impotence of women. Her mother had no real existence for her, her life snuffed out when she was no longer useful to the King. Stepmothers came and went, powerless in the grip of fate or the terrifying whim of her autocratic father. Even Catherine Parr, who inspired in the young Elizabeth a certain affection and admiration, was prematurely erased from life by the scourge of puerperal fever. The only constant image of power in Elizabeth’s growing years was the once magnificent, but increasingly mangy and irascible old lion of England, her father, the King.

Unmov’d Maria saw the splendid suite Of rival captives sighing at her feet, Till in her cause his sword young Stoney drew, And to avenge, the gallant wooer flew! Bravest amongst the Brave! – and first to prove By death! or conquests! who best knew to love! But pale and faint the wounded lover lies, While more than pity fills Maria’s eyes! In her soft breast, where passion long had strove, Resistless sorrow fix’d the reign of love! ‘Dear youth,’ she cries, ‘we meet no more to part! Then take thy honour’s due – my bleeding heart!’ ~ Mary Eleanor Bowes

It was music first of all that brought us together. Without being professionals or virtuosos, we were all passionate lovers of music; but Serge dreamed of devoting himself entirely to the art. All the time he was studying law along with us, he took singing lessons with Cotogni, the famous baritone of the Italian Opera; while for musical theory, which he wanted to master completely so as to rival Moussorgsky and Tchaikovsky, he went to the very source and studied with Rimsky-Korsakov. However, our musical tastes were not always the same. The quality our group valued most was what the Germans call Stimmung, and besides this, the power of suggestion and dramatic force. The Bach of the Passions, Gluck, Schubert, Wagner and the Russian composers – Borodin in ‘Prince Igor’, Rimsky and, above all, Tchaikovsky, were our gods. Tchaikovsky’s ‘Queen of Spades’ had just been performed for the first time at the Opera of St Petersburg, and we were ecstatic about its Hoffmannesque element, notably the scene in the old Countess’s bedroom. We liked the composer’s famous Romances much less, finding them insipid and sometimes trivial. These Romances, however, were just what Diaghilev liked. What he valued most was broad melody, and in particular whatever gave a singer the chance to display the sensuous qualities of his voice. During the years of his apprenticeship he bore our criticisms and jokes with resignation, but as he learned more about music – and about the history of art in general – he gained in self-confidence and found reasons to justify his predilections. There came a time when not only did he dare to withstand our attacks but went on to refute our arguments fiercely.

To develop “naturally,” this kind of love requires secrecy and obstruction. The presence of an obstacle to the consummation of romantic love is so essential that in the archetypal courtly romance of Tristan and Iseult, when Tristan and Iseult (who is married to Tristan’s lord, King Mark) finally flee to the wilderness for three years after a risky affair under the King’s nose at court, they live together chastely. When the barrier is removed and romance is finally attainable, it atrophies. Later, romance returns when the lovers are again separated. This strange paradox, in which lovers risk life and limb in order to consummate an affair only to witness the affair fizzle when all obstructions are removed, is not unusual in court love poetry. Unfortunately, the same paradox has become common in modern marriage: passion thrives when love is young, and it especially swells in the face of societal obstruction, rival courters, or external hardships. When parents are disapproving, or there is a social taboo, passionate amor binds the lovers together in direct proportion to the difficulty of conducting the affair. However, when the lovers are together day-after-day and night-after-night, the passion wanes and boredom replaces the professed “love.

The world is full of indiscreet neighbors with whom I must share the other. The world is in fact just that : an obligation to share. The world ( the worldly ) is my rival. . . You belong to me as well," the world says.

Structurally, then, errors of love are similar to errors in general. Emotionally, however, they are in a league of their own: astounding, enduring, miserable, incomprehensible. True, certain other large-scale errors can rival or even dwarf them; we’ve gotten a taste of that in recent chapters. But relatively few of us will undergo, for example, the traumatic and total abandonment of a deeply held religious belief, or the wrongful identification of an assailant. By contrast, the vast majority of us will get our hearts seriously broken, quite possibly more than once. And when we do, we will experience not one but two kinds of wrongness about love. The first is a specific error about a specific person—the loss of faith in a relationship, whether it ended because our partner left us or because we grew disillusioned. But, as I’ve suggested, we will also find that we were wrong about love in a more general way: that we embraced an account of it that is manifestly implausible. The specific error might be the one that breaks our heart, but the general one noticeably compounds the heartache. A lover who is part of our very soul can’t be wrong for us, nor can we be wrong about her. A love that is eternal cannot end. And yet it does, and there we are—mired in a misery made all the more extreme by virtue of being unthinkable. We can’t do much about the specific error—the one in which we turn out to be wrong about (or wronged by) someone we once deeply loved. (In fact, this is a good example of a kind of error we can’t eliminate and shouldn’t want to.) But what about the general error? Why do we embrace a narrative of love that makes the demise of our relationships that much more shocking, humiliating, and painful? There are, after all, less romantic and more realistic narratives of love available to us: the cool biochemical one, say, where the only heroes are hormones; the implacable evolutionary one, where the communion of souls is supplanted by the transmission of genes; or just a slightly more world-weary one, where love is rewarding and worth it, but nonetheless unpredictable and possibly impermanent—Shakespeare’s wandering bark rather than his fixèd mark. Any of these would, at the very least, help brace us for the blow of love’s end. But at what price? Let go of the romantic notion of love, and we also relinquish the protection it purports to offer us against loneliness and despair. Love can’t bridge the gap between us and the world if it is, itself, evidence of that gap—just another fallible human theory, about ourselves, about the people we love, about the intimate “us” of a relationship. Whatever the cost, then, we must think of love as wholly removed from the earthly, imperfect realm of theory-making. Like the love of Aristophanes’ conjoined couples before they angered the gods, like the love of Adam and Eve before they were exiled from the Garden of Eden, we want our own love to predate and transcend the gap between us and the world.

prefer salty over sweet. I prefer sunsets over sunrises, but only because I love to watch the constellations begin to burn. My favorite season is autumn, because my mum and I both believed that’s the only time when magic can be tasted in the air. I am a devout tea lover and can drink my weight in it.