Scary Love Quotes

Love is scary: it changes; it can go away. That's the part of the risk. I don't want to be scared anymore.

I realized how truly hard it was, really, to see someone you love change right before your eyes. Not only is it scary, it throws your balance off as well.

And that was the moment I realized: when the world felt dark and scary, love could whisk you off to go dancing; laughter could take some of the pain away; beauty could punch holes in your fear. I decided then that my life would be full of all three.

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

I’ll be your family now,” he says. “I love you,” I say. I said that once, before I went to Erudite headquarters, but he was asleep then. I don’t know why I didn’t say it when he could hear it. Maybe I was afraid to trust him with something so personal as my devotion. Or afraid that I did not know what it was to love someone. But now I think the scary thing was not saying it before it was almost too late. Not saying it before it was almost too late for me. I am his, and he is mine, and it has been that way all along. He stares at me. I wait with my hands clutching his arms for stability as he considers his response. He frowns at me. “Say it again.” “Tobias,” I say, “I love you.” His skin is slippery with water and he smells like sweat and my shirt sticks to his arms when he slides them around me. He presses his face to my neck and kisses me right above the collarbone, kisses my cheek, kisses my lips. “I love you, too,” he says.

So much of love is chance. There's something scary and wonderful about that.

I think in the end, you would have stayed with me, out of obligation...or maybe comfort. Maybe I was safe to you, and you needed to feel that. I know how scared you get of the unknown. To you...I must be kind of a security blanket. Do you see now, how that doesn't work for me? I don't want to be there, simply because the idea of me being gone is too...scary. I want to be someone's everything. I want fire and passion, and love that's returned, equally. I want to be someone's heart... Even if it means breaking my own.

It's scary being loved. Because life is complicated and all too often it throws you off balance by sending you the right person at the wrong time.

When you first fall in love, it's supposed to be awful. Awful, uncertain, scary, wonderful, confusing, all at once. That's how you know it's real. You have to care deeply. Passionately. That hurts.

I don't know why people are afraid of lust. Then I can imagine that they are very afraid of me, for I have a great lust for everything. A lust for life, a lust for how the summer-heated street feels beneath my feet, a lust for the touch of another's skin on my skin...a lust for everything. I even lust after cake. Yes, I am very lusty and very scary.

I’m not just falling in love with you, Nell. I’m falling into you. You’re an ocean, and I’m falling in, drowning in the depths of who you are. Like you said, it’s scary in a way, but it’s also the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced. You are the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced.

Love is scary: it changes; it can go away. That's part of the risk.

There are ways in which we’re so alike. We’re reckless. We don’t think before we act. We’ll do anything for people we love. And I never thought how scary that was for the people who loved me until I saw

Truth is beautiful, no matter what the truth is. Even if it's scary or bad. It is beauty simply because it's true. And truth is bright. Truth makes you more you.

Is this how it goes? You fall in love, and nothing seems truly scary anymore, and life is one big possibility?

It’s okay. It may not seem like it right now, but you are going to be fine. I know it’s scary, but don’t be afraid. You are who you are, and you should love that person, and I don’t want anyone to have to go through 22 years of their life afraid to accept that.

I know it’s scary, being vulnerable, but you can allow yourself to care. You can want to be with people as more than just friends or casual acquaintances.

Captain?" "Cress." She couldn't not say it, although she realized he was right.It was sort of scary. Much scarier than it had been the first time she'd told him, out in the desert. It was different now. It was real. "I'm in love with you." He chuckled. "I should hope so, after all that." He leaned forward and pressed a kiss against her temple. "And I love you too.

It’s fun to think of the what-if. Scary, but fun. It’s like, I thought this door was closed before, but here it is open just the tiniest crack. What if?

She was a ray of sunshine, a warm summer rain, a bright fire on a cold winter’s day, and now she could be dead because she had tried to save the man she loved.

I am no longer alone with myself, and I can only artificially recall the scary and beautiful feeling of solitude. This is the shadow side of the fortune of love.

It will be scary. But I know you can do it. Know that I'll be with you, if there's any way that I can manage it. And know that I have always -and will, for always- love you.

It’s a scary thought, isn’t it? That every single person on this planet could lose their one true love and live to love again? It means the one you love could love again if they lost you.

She learned to love him before he thought it was even possible, so he didn't have a chance to hide & mess it up & while it was a little scary at times, mainly he could not even imagine the world without her there.

It's just a stupid sword," she said, aloud this time... ... but it wasn't. Needle was Robb and Bran and Rickon, her mother and her father, even Sansa. Needle was Winterfell's grey walls, and the laughter of its people. Needle was the summer snows, Old Nan's stories, the heart tree with its red leaves and scary face, the warm earthy smell of the glass gardens, the sound of the north wind rattling the shutters of her room. Needle was Jon Snow's smile.

But the truth is, I do want to be loved, and that’s scary to admit. It’s a lot easier to say you don’t want to be loved when no one loves you.

She'd been in love with the man, and love is a scary thing. If not reciprocated, it can turn a person into a monster.

People who love horror films are people with boring lives... when a really scary movie is over, you're reassured to see that you're still alive and the world still exists as it did before. That's the real reason we have horror films - they act as shock absorbers - and if they disappeared altogether, I bet you'd see a big leap in the number of serial killers. After all, anyone stupid enough to get the idea of murdering people from a movie could get the same idea from watching the news.

It’s scary that people can just stop loving you, you know?

Letting out a deep breath, he pressed his forehead down to mine. With his eyes closed, he whispered, “That’s what love is … It’s scary not knowing what’s expected, but I know it’ll be the best frightening love we’ve ever had.” - Marcus (Disastrous)

My world is a less scary place with you in it, baby. I will kiss you a thousand times every day if that’s what it takes to keep you in love with me for the rest of our days.

Love's scary, and sometimes it's transient. But it's worth the risks and the nerves. It's even worth the pain.

when the world felt dark and scary, love could whisk you off to go dancing; laughter could take some of the pain away; beauty could punch holes in your fear.

Even though I knew this might end in heartbreak, that he might make my life scary and complicated and unpredictable, I knew I couldn't let him walk away. Because I knew he'd also make my life happy and comforting and full.

It's scary when it's real. When it's not just thinking about a person, but, like, having a real live person in front of you, with, like, expectations. And wants.

But, though I was very much in lust with him, I knew from the start we were nothing like "forever." Maybe because forever is such a scary place.

The scary thing about distance is you don't know whether they'll miss you or forget you.

At some point, as Richard keeps telling me, you gotta let go and sit still and allow contentment to come to you. Letting go, of course, is a scary enterprise for those of us who believe that the world revolves only because it has a handle on the top of it which we personally turn, and that if we were to drop this handle for even a moment, well – that would be the end of the universe. But try dropping it….Sit quietly for now and cease your relentless participation. Watch what happens. The birds do not crash dead out of the sky in mid-flight, after all. The trees do not wither and die, the rivers do not run red with blood. Life continues to go on…. Why are you so sure that your micromanagement of every moment in this whole world is so essential? Why don’t you let it be?

You want safe? Find a nice puppy you can train to come heel. Love's supposed to be scary. Because if there's no fear, there's no thrill.

They want us to be afraid. They want us to be afraid of leaving our homes. They want us to barricade our doors and hide our children. Their aim is to make us fear life itself! They want us to hate. They want us to hate 'the other'. They want us to practice aggression and perfect antagonism. Their aim is to divide us all! They want us to be inhuman. They want us to throw out our kindness. They want us to bury our love and burn our hope. Their aim is to take all our light! They think their bricked walls will separate us. They think their damned bombs will defeat us. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that my soul and your soul are old friends. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that when they cut you I bleed. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that we will never be afraid, we will never hate and we will never be silent for life is ours!

The girls said she was too cynical about love, but how could you not be? On the surface, relations between men and women were all soft kisses and white gowns and hand-holding. But underneath they were a scary, complicated, ugly mess, just waiting to rise to the surface.

As scary as this can be I want you to know no matter how broken you feel, and how seemingly unlikely it is, we are never too broken to heal.

And I was pretty sure this was how love felt: fuzzy and scary and confusing and light enough to whisk you away like a Tesco’s bag on the wind.

There is something immensely scary about putting yourself out there for people to love or hate you, fan or pan you, review or screw you.

To cut off the confusion and accept an answer just because it's too scary not to have an answer is a good way to get the wrong answer.

Oh honey, someday a real man is going to make you see stars and you won't even be looking at the sky." Excerpt from Grace Willow's Last Minute Bride

There are moments in your life, moments when chances have to be taken. It's scary because there is always the possibility of failure. I know that. I KNOW that. Because once upon a time, I took a chance on a man that I had failed before. I was SCARED. I was TERRIFIED. I thought I might lose everything. But I wasn't living, then. The life I had before wasn't LIVING. It was getting by. And I will never regret the chances I took. Because it brought me to them. To all of them. I made my choice. And you're making yours. Don't you wish things could be different?

Oh my. He's English. "Er. Does Mer live here?" Seriously, I don't know any American girl who can resist an English accent. The boy clears his throat. "Meredith Chevalier? Tall girl? Big, curly hair?" Then he looks at me like I'm crazy or half deaf, like my Nana Oliphant. Nanna just smiles and shakes her head whenever I ask, "What kind of salad dressing would you like?" or "Where did you put Granddad's false teeth?" "I'm sorry." He takes the smallest step away from me. "You were going to bed." "Yes! Meredith lives here. I've just spent two hours with her." I announce this proudly like my little brother, Seany, whenever he finds something disgusting in the yard. "I'm Anna! I'm new here!" Oh, [Gosh]. What. Is with. The scary enthusiasm? My cheeks catch fire, and it's all so humiliating. The beautiful boy gives an amused grin. His teeth are lovely - straight on top and crooked on the bottom, with a touch of overbite. I'm a sucker for smiles like this, due to my own lack of orthodontia. I have a gap between my front teeth the size of a raisin. "Étienne," he says. "I live one floor up." "I live here." I point dumbly at my room while my mind whirs: French name, English accent, American school. Anna confused. He raps twice on Meredith's door. "Well. I'll see you around then, Anna." Eh-t-yen says my name like this: Ah-na.

Despite the fact that I have no regrets about how things turned out in my life, I still can't help wanting to understand my intense relationship with Leo, as well as that turbulent time between adolescence and adulthood when everything feels raw and invigorating and scary-and why those feelings are all coming back to me now.

Anyone who knows how scary it is to be alone, can't help loving others." ~Rin Sohma

I shrug, trapped. I don’t want to lose him. In spite of all his demands, his need to control, his scary vices. I have never felt as alive as I do now. It’s a thrill to be sitting here beside him. He’s so unpredictable, sexy, smart, and funny. But his moods… oh – and he wants to hurt me. He says he’ll think about my reservations, but it still scares me. I close my eyes. What can I say? Deep down I would just like more, more affection, more playful Christian, more… love.

It’s hard to go. It’s scary and lonely…and half the time you’ll be wondering why the hell you’re in Cincinnati or Austin or North Dakota or Mongolia or wherever your melodious little finger-plucking heinie takes you. There will be boondoggles and discombobulated days, freaked-out nights and metaphorical flat tires. But it will be soul-smashingly beautiful… It will open up your life.

And what makes you so certain I won't enlighten the world about your romantic indiscretions?" "Because it won't save you from prison. And if you ruin Rose, you'll destroy whatever weak chance you had of Lissa helping you with your warped fantasy." Victor flinched just a little; Dimitri was right. Dimitri stepped forward, pressing close to the bars as I had earlier. I'd though I had a scary voice, but when he spoke his next words, I realized I wasn't even close. "And it'll be pointless anyway, because you won't stay alive long enough in prison to stage your grand plans. You aren't the only one with connections." My breath caught a little. Dimitri brought so many things to my life: love, comfort, and instruction. I got so used to him sometimes I forgot how dangerous he could be. As he stood there, tall and threatening while he glared down at Victor, I felt a chill run down my spine. I remembered how when I had first come to the Academy, people said Dimitri was a god. In this moment, he looked like it.

I don’t know if there’s a healthier way for two people to stay in love than to stop using each other to resolve their unfulfilled longings and, instead, start holding each other closely as they experience them.

But I know your blood doesn't define you. What defines you is the choices you make. If I've learned anything this year, it's that. And I also know that loving someone--even when it's scary, even when there are consequences--is never the wrong thing to do. Loving someone is the opposite of hurting her.

Here are two things I found taking the long road, though: Applause is a quick fix. And love is an acquired taste.

It’s scary telling someone you care about, someone you love who you really are.

That’s why they say ‘falling in love’ and not something like ‘floating toward love.’ Falling is scary.

She put all of her weight against the sill of the balcony, her lovesick heart ready and willing to join the man she loved.  She closed her eyes and pushed herself forward.  From three stories high, she plummeted to the earth.  Before hitting the ground, she swore she saw him, racing down from the heavens and lifting her up towards God’s domain where lovers never ceased to rule.

You deserve a man who makes you feel butterflies. Love isn't safe. Love is crazy and scary and unpredictable. You can't control it and you sure as hell can't fight it. It's one of life's greatest risks...but it's also one of life's greatest gifts.

And I also know that loving someone—even when it’s scary, even when there are consequences—is never the wrong thing to do.

I love you, and it's not the kind of love that wavers. It's the scary kind that doesn't fade. I look at you, and I see not just everything I want for my life, but everything I am, because you took the emptiest, dark pits of my soul and filled them with you. You are as much part of me as my own heart, and it doesn't beat without you.

Is there no context for our lives? No song, no literature, no poem full of vitamins, no history connected to experience that you can pass along to help us start strong? You are an adult. The old one, the wise one. Stop thinking about saving your face. Think of our lives and tell us your particularized world. Make up a story. Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created. We will not blame you if your reach exceeds your grasp; if love so ignites your words they go down in flames and nothing is left but their scald. Or if, with the reticence of a surgeon's hands, your words suture only the places where blood might flow. We know you can never do it properly - once and for all. Passion is never enough; neither is skill. But try. For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief s wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear's caul. You, old woman, blessed with blindness, can speak the language that tells us what only language can: how to see without pictures. Language alone protects us from the scariness of things with no names. Language alone is meditation.

At first it was scary, but then I liked it too. Part of me wants to just stay next to you forever. I could easily do that. I could love you forever.

Sometimes the clouds weren’t weightless. Sometimes their bellies got dark and full. It was life. It happened. It didn’t mean it wasn’t scary, or that I wasn’t still afraid, but now I knew that as long as I was standing under it with Braden beside me when those clouds broke, I’d be alright.

It’s all connected with the belief human love is conditional. But human love isn’t conditional. No love is conditional. If love is conditional, it’s just some sort of manipulation masquerading as love.

All those nights of sharing a bed All those times he put an arm around me All the things he's done to make my happy ...encouraging me to give Ty a chance He must really love me if he'll watch me date another guy just to ensure I'm happy But he's like my brother And Ty is my boyfriend now My dream boyfriend The guy I lost my virginity to What's scary? I'm so hot for Ty but Henry makes me feel whole in a totally different sort of way even if I've never considered jumping him F***ety, F***, F***

But as I stood watching her, I realized how truly hard it was,really, to see someone you love change right before your eyes. Not only is it scary, it throws your balance off as well. This was how my mother felt, I realized, over the weeks I worked at Wish, as she began to not recognize me in small ways, day after day. It was no wonder she'd reacted by pulling me closer, frcibly narrowing my world back to fit insider her own. Even now, as I finally saw this as the truth it was, a part of me wishing my mother would stand up straight, take command, be back in control. But all I'd wanted when she was tugging me closer was to be able to prove to her that the changes in me were good ones, ones she'd understand if she only gave them a chance. I had that chance now. While it was scary, I was gong to take it. ~Macy, pgs 351 and 352

I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. With that definition in mind, let's think about love. Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can't ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment's notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow- that's vulnerability. Love is uncertain. It's incredibly risky. And loving someone leaves us emotionally exposed. Yes, it's scary, and yes, we're open to being hurt, but can you imagine your life without loving or being loved?

I don’t know why life isn’t constructed to be seamless and safe, why we make such glaring mistakes, things fall so short of our expectations, and our hearts get broken and out kids do scary things and our parents get old and don’t always remember to put pants on before they go out for a stroll. I don’t know why it’s not more like it is in the movies, why things don’t come out neatly and lessons can’t be learned when you’re in the mood for learning them, why love and grace often come in such motley packaging.

Don’t you see? You and he might never cross paths again. Of course, a chance meeting could occur, and I hope it happens. I really do, for your sake. But realistically speaking, you have to see there’s a huge possibility you’ll never be able to meet him again. And even if you do meet, he might already be married to somebody else. He might have two kids. Isn’t that so? And in that case, you may have to live the rest of your life alone, never being joined with the one person you love in all the world. Don’t you find that scary?

You don't think I could bring myself to mark your lovely skin? I'll take my knife to you, if that's the case. I'll carve my name in your breast so that every beat of your heart will remind you that you are mine—and mine alone. Because blood is binding, and because I would rather see you destroyed than see you free or in the possession of another, so I suggest you not try me, or you will suffer as no earthly creature has.” He slammed her back against the wall. “Or ever will. But that is a suggestion, and one you are free to disregard at your own peril. But you are are going to answer my question.

But love doesn’t control, and I suppose that’s why it’s the ultimate risk. In the end, we have to hope the person we’re giving our heart to won’t break it, and be willing to forgive them when they do, even as they will forgive us. Real love stories don’t have dictators, they have participants. Love is an ever-changing, complicated, choose-your-own adventure narrative that offers the world but guarantees nothing.

Cancer seems a high price to pay for an innocuous-looking habit. You get into smoking and you are robbed of the last 25 years of your life. Some cocky souls will say, 'Ah yes, but they are the worst 25 years.' Nobody feels like that in a cancer ward. There are no cocky souls in a cancer ward. But there's a lot of pain, not just of the excruciating physical kind that they shoot you full of morphine to smother. There are a lot of tears. All round. It is hard to say goodbye to the people you love. And it's scary. Cancer wards have a way of knocking the cockiness out of you. And for what? Another cigarette?

I no longer believe love works like a fairy tale but like farming. Most of it is just getting up early and tilling the soil and then praying for rain. But if we do the work, we just might wake up one day to find an endless field of crops rolling into the horizon. In my opinion, that’s even better than a miracle. I’d rather earn the money than win the lottery because there’s no joy in a reward unless it comes at the end of a story.

I love you," I say. I said that once, before I went to Erudite headquarters, but he was asleep then. I don't know why I didn't say it when he could hear it. Maybe I was afraid to trust him with something so personal as my devotion. Or afraid that I did not know what it was to love someone. But now I think the scary thing was not saying it before it was too late. Not saying it before it was almost too late for me.

I don’t …” I sound like I am being strangled. “My family is all dead, or traitors; how can I …” I am not making any sense. The sobs take over my body, my mind, everything. He gathers me to him, and bathwater soaks my legs. His hold is tight. I listen to his heartbeat and, after a while, find a way to let the rhythm calm me. “I’ll be your family now,” he says. “I love you,” I say. I said that once, before I went to Erudite headquarters, but he was asleep then. I don’t know why I didn’t say it when he could hear it. Maybe I was afraid to trust him with something so personal as my devotion. Or afraid that I did not know what it was to love someone. But now I think the scary thing was not saying it before it was almost too late. Not saying it before it was almost too late for me. I am his, and he is mine, and it has been that way all along. He stares at me. I wait with my hands clutching his arms for stability as he considers his response. He frowns at me. “Say it again.” “Tobias,” I say, “I love you.” His skin is slippery with water and he smells like sweat and my shirt sticks to his arms when he slides them around me. He presses his face to my neck and kisses me right above the collarbone, kisses my cheek, kisses my lips. “I love you, too,” he says.

But . . . maybe I could find something. Maybe there would be one person who’d still want to kiss me when I had a runny nose or would rub my shoulders after a long day of meetings. Maybe I could find someone who didn’t seem so scary, who made letting him past the wall seem natural. But all that still could be asking for too much.

You'll need courage because polyamorous relationships can be scary. Loving other people without a script is scary. Allowing the people you love to make their own choices without controlling them is scary. The kind of courage we're talking about involves being willing to let go of guarantees - and love and trust your partners anyway.

The old Amy, the girl of the big laugh and the easy ways, literally shed herself, a pile of skin and soul on the floor, and stepped this new, brittle, bitter Amy ... a razor-wire knot daring me to unloop her, and I was not up to the job with my thick, numb, nervous fingers. Country fingers. Flyover fingers untrained in the intricate, dangerous work of 'solving Amy'. When I'd hold up the bloody stumps, she'd sigh and turn to her secret mental notebooks on which she tallied all my deficiencies, forever noting disappointments, frailties, shortcomings.

My brother gave me some good advice. He said, "What do you want to do? Do that because there are no rules when it comes to love. There are absolutely no rules. Do what you want to do." I think that was the most liberating piece of advice, because love really is unpredictable. There's trap doors, all kinds of scary stuff, caves and bears... You never know what's going to happen so you just have to do what you feel is right in the end.

I have scars on my hand from touching certain people. Once, in the park, when Frannie was still in the carriage, I put my hand on the downy pate of her head and left it there too long. Another time, at Loew's Seventy-second Street, with Zooey during a spooky movie. He was about six or seven, and he went under the seat to avoid watching a scary scene. I put my hand on his head. Certain heads, certain colors and textures of human hair leave permanent marks on me. Other things, too. Charlotte once ran away from me, outside the studio, and I grabbed her dress to stop her, to keep her near me. A yellow cotton dress I loved because it was too long for her. I still have a lemon-yellow mark on the palm of my right hand.

Everyone wants to fall in love. But I think more people are in love with the theory of love. If you’re looking in from the outside, it looks so beautiful. On the inside, it’s scary because it can take over your life. It’s the strongest emotion but also the darkest. It can put you on a high for days, but it can wrap an anchor around your feet and drown you in less than a minute. If everyone knew the truth no one would really ask for love. But when it drops into your life, you can only hope that you have enough strength to hang on.

Young people, Lord. Do they still call it infatuation? That magic ax that chops away the world in one blow, leaving only the couple standing there trembling? Whatever they call it, it leaps over anything, takes the biggest chair, the largest slice, rules the ground wherever it walks, from a mansion to a swamp, and its selfishness is its beauty. Before I was reduced to singsong, I saw all kinds of mating. Most are two-night stands trying to last a season. Some, the riptide ones, claim exclusive right to the real name, even though everybody drowns in its wake. People with no imagination feed it with sex—the clown of love. They don’t know the real kinds, the better kinds, where losses are cut and everybody benefits. It takes a certain intelligence to love like that—softly, without props. But the world is such a showpiece, maybe that’s why folks try to outdo it, put everything they feel onstage just to prove they can think up things too: handsome scary things like fights to the death, adultery, setting sheets afire. They fail, of course. The world outdoes them every time. While they are busy showing off, digging other people’s graves, hanging themselves on a cross, running wild in the streets, cherries are quietly turning from greed to red, oysters are suffering pearls, and children are catching rain in their mouths expecting the drops to be cold but they’re not; they are warm and smell like pineapple before they get heavier and heavier, so heavy and fast they can’t be caught one at a time. Poor swimmers head for shore while strong ones wait for lightning’s silver veins. Bottle-green clouds sweep in, pushing the rain inland where palm trees pretend to be shocked by the wind. Women scatter shielding their hair and men bend low holding the women’s shoulders against their chests. I run too, finally. I say finally because I do like a good storm. I would be one of those people in the weather channel leaning into the wind while lawmen shout in megaphones: ‘Get moving!

I look down at myself, but I don't need to. I can feel it. My hot blood is pounding through my body, flooding capillaries and lighting up cells like Fourth of July fireworks. I can feel the elation of every atom in my flesh, brimming with gratitude for the second chance they never expected to get. The chance to start over, to live right, to love right, to burn up in a fiery cloud and never again be buried in the mud. I kiss Julie to hide the fact that I'm blushing. My face is bright red and hot enough to melt steel. Okay, corpse, a voice in my head says, and I feel a twitch in my belly, more like a gentle nudge than a kick. I'm going now. I'm sorry I couldn't be here for your battle; I was fighting my own. But we won, right? I can feel it. There's a shiver in our legs, a tremor like the Earth speeding up, spinning off into uncharted orbits. Scary, isn't it? But what wonderful thing didn't start out scary? I don't know what the next page is for you, but whatever it is for me I swear I'm not going to fuck it up. I'm not going to yawn off in the middle of a sentence and hide it in a drawer. Not this time. Peel off these dusty wool blankets of apathy and antipathy and cynical desiccation. I want life in all its stupid sticky rawness. Okay. Okay, R. Here it comes.

I've learned that love is about finding someone who pulls you to them even when reason might tell you otherwise. Someone who pushes you out of your comfort zone, not because of them doing or saying anything, necessarily, but because they make you want to try new things. They make you want to be daring, because maybe something new and scary doesn't feel quite as scary by their side.

She gestured toward his very fine chest with her pencil. “On the off chance I find out after we’re married that your declaration of abiding love and devotion has been an elaborate con job perpetrated by you, Bodie, and Scary Spice…” He massaged her arch. “I definitely wouldn’t lose too much sleep over that.” “Just in case. You will give me all you worldly goods, shave your head, and leave the country.” “Deal.” “Plus, you have to hand out your Sox tickets so I can burn them in front of your eyes.

Love is the one thing in this world worth taking a risk for. When you're older and you look back on the life you lived, you won't regret the fact that you took the chance to love someone. But you will regret the chances on love you didn't take. Especially the ones rooted in fear. They're only scary because you have the most to lose. You feel the most for them. Don't let the fear of losing love stop you from having the experience altogether.

We all have light and dark inside us, love. We try to hide the darkness from others because we’re afraid it will scare them away. But your dark doesn’t scare me, Luca. It only makes me want to hold your hand and be your light until you can find your own again. That’s what people do when they’re in love. I won’t always be able to give you your light back, because sometimes you need to find that within yourself, but I’ll stand by your side and hold your hand in the dark so things aren’t so scary.

I've never met someone who is so perfectly my favorite person. When I think about being with you every day, no part of me feels claustrophobic. And when I think about having to have the kinds of fights with you that Naomi and I used to have, there's nothing scary about it. Because I trust you, more than I've ever trusted anyone - The world looks different than I ever thought it could be, and I don't want to look for what's broken or what could go wrong. I don't want to brace myself for the worst and miss out on being with you. I want to be the one who gives you what you deserve - and I don't think I ever could deserve any of that, and I know this things between us isn't a sure thing, but that's what I want to aim for with you. Because I know no matter how long I get to love you, it will be worth whatever comes after.

Dorian strokes my exposed back with the tips of his fingers, sending shockwaves up and down my spine. I gasp from the contact, resisting the urge to beg him for more. He brings his face down to my neck, letting his lips brush my earlobe. “Gabriella, I would love to bend you over this desk right now and pull your dress up past your thighs and over your ass,” he murmurs, sex dripping from his soft lips. “That sounds good to me,” I breathe, turning my head a fraction. “What’s stopping you?” Never in my life have I been this bold and eager with a man but Dorian has awakened the sleeping sex giant within me. If my days are numbered, I want to at least die happy. “Oh, I would do it. But I know Aurora will come looking for me and I don’t want to be disturbed when I… ruin you.” Ruin me? It sounds so threatening and violent. I love it.

It’s a cliché because it is true. If you are not happy with yourself and willing to show yourself the same kind of love and respect you want to give to others, no relationship will magically fix you. And while it can certainly be tempting to jump from relationship to relationship, because the space in between them is scary and unknown, learning how to demonstrate that love and compassion for yourself is essential (and surprisingly fulfilling). Going on a solo vacation, or even spending a few days alone — leaving your laptop at home, if you can manage it — might seem like a strange way to feel loved, but if you can be happy with your own company, you can be happy with anything.

I tore open one side and reached in. My hand closed around something cold and metallic. I knew before I even pulled it out what it was. It was a silver stake. "Oh God," I said. I rolled the stake around, running my finger over the engraved geometric pattern at its base. There was no question. One-of-a-kind. This was the stake I'd taken from the vault in Galina's house. The one I'd- "Why would someone send you a stake?"asked Lissa. I didn't answer and instead pulled out the envelope's next item:a small note card. There, in handwriting I knew all too well, was: 'You forgot another lesson:Never turn your back until you know your enemy is dead. Looks like we'll have to go over the lesson the next time I see you-which will be soon. Love, D.

Dear Karen, I've been thinking about Us, the story of us. How the fuck do I sum it up? Has it been perfect? Hardly. Any story with me at the center of it will never be anything less than a big smiling mess. But here's what I know for sure—our time in the sun has been a thing of absolute fucking beauty. The nightmares, the hangovers, the fucking and the punching. The gorgeous shimmering insanity of the city of ours. Where for years I woke up, fucked up, said I was sorry, passed out and did it all over again. As a writer, I'm a sucker for happy endings. The guy gets the girl, she saves him from himself, fade to fucking black. As a guy who loves a girl, I realize there's no such thing. There's no sunset. There's just now, and there's just the two of us, which can be scary fucking ugly sometimes. But if you close your eyes and listen for the whisper of your heart—if you simply keep trying and never ever give up, no matter how many times you get it wrong, until the beginning and the end blur into something called until we meet again -- and that's it. I didn't know how to finish it, because it's not over. It'll never be over, as longs as there's you, and there's me, and there's hope, and grace.

David Foster Wallace: I think the reason why people behave in an ugly manner is that it’s really scary to be alive and to be human, and people are really really afraid. And that the reasons… That the fear is the basic condition, and there are all kinds of reasons for why we’re so afraid. But the fact of the matter is, is that, is that the job that we’re here to do is to learn how to live in a way that we’re not terrified all the time. And not in a position of using all kinds of different things, and using people to keep that kind of terror at bay. That is my personal opinion. Well for me, as an American male, the face I’d put on the terror is the dawning realization that nothing’s enough, you know? That no pleasure is enough, that no achievement is enough. That there’s a kind of queer dissatisfaction or emptiness at the core of the self that is unassuageable by outside stuff. And my guess is that that’s been what’s going on, ever since people were hitting each other over the head with clubs. Though describable in a number of different words and cultural argots. And that our particular challenge is that there’s never been more and better stuff comin’ from the outside, that seems temporarily to sort of fill the hole or drown out the hole. Personally, I believe that if it’s assuageable in any way it’s by internal means. And I don’t know what that means. I think it’s fine in some way. I think it’s probably assuageable by internal means. I think those internal means have to be earned and developed, and it has something to do with, um, um, the pop-psych phrase is lovin’ yourself. It’s more like, if you can think of times in your life that you’ve treated people with extraordinary decency and love, and pure uninterested concern, just because they were valuable as human beings. The ability to do that with ourselves. To treat ourselves the way we would treat a really good, precious friend. Or a tiny child of ours that we absolutely loved more than life itself. And I think it’s probably possible to achieve that. I think part of the job we’re here for is to learn how to do this.

Men,you say you want a strong, intelligent, truly independent woman who wants you rather than needs you, who inspires you, who pushes you towards being yourself, who can stick by you through the hardest times, and who can be your rock through life's obstacles. But you need to know that a truly strong, independent woman does not walk through life with her heart wide open. She has had to put up walls to block toxicity to obtain her strength. She is skeptical and always on alert from a lifetime of defense against predators. She is going to be a bit jaded, a little cynical, and a little scary because those qualities come with the struggle of obtaining that strength that gravitates you. She is going to doubt and question your good intentions because it has become her adaptability instincts that have allowed her to thrive. She is not a ball of sunshine. She has flaws. She has a past. She has her demons. She knows better than to just let down her barriers for you simply because you voice a desire to enter. You have to prove your right of entrance. She will assume the worst of you because the worst has happened. If you want her to see otherwise, prove her wrong.

The first time you asked me to marry you was three years ago. You told me it didn’t have to be that day, or the next day, or even that year. You just wanted me to swear I would when I was ready. I said yes, of course, and I meant it with everything in me. We were young and maybe we were naïve, thinking we had it all figured out, but one thing I never doubted was that we were meant to be. “ Haven paused to wipe her cheeks as more tears spilled from her eyes. “When I first met you I wasn’t sure what to think. You were nothing like anyone I’d ever met before. The things you made me feel were scary, and I wanted nothing more than to stay away from you, but I couldn’t. I was drawn to you. You gave me hope. You believed in me and helped me, and most of all, you loved me. Me. Out of all he people in the world, you picked me. I was used to being overlooked, used to being invisible, but you saw me. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without you. I love you, Carmine Marcello DeMarco, and I want you to know I’m ready now. I’m ready to spend the rest of my life with you.” “Sempre,” he whispered, choking on the word. “Sempre.” Haven meant it with every fiber of her being. He was hers forever.

I’m such a negative person, and always have been. Was I born that way? I don’t know. I am constantly disgusted by reality, horrified and afraid. I cling desperately to the few things that give me some solace, that make me feel good. I hate most of humanity. Though I might be very fond of particular individuals, humanity in general fills me with contempt and despair. I hate most of what passes for civilization. I hate the modern world. For one thing there are just too Goddamn many people. I hate the hordes, the crowds in their vast cities, with all their hateful vehicles, their noise and their constant meaningless comings and goings. I hate cars. I hate modern architecture. Every building built after 1955 should be torn down! I despise modern music. Words cannot express how much it gets on my nerves – the false, pretentious, smug assertiveness of it. I hate business, having to deal with money. Money is one of the most hateful inventions of the human race. I hate the commodity culture, in which everything is bought and sold. No stone is left unturned. I hate the mass media, and how passively people suck up to it. I hate having to get up in the morning and face another day of this insanity. I hate having to eat, shit, maintain the body – I hate my body. The thought of my internal functions, the organs, digestion, the brain, the nervous system, horrify me. Nature is horrible. It’s not cute and loveable. It’s kill or be killed. It’s very dangerous out there. The natural world is filled with scary, murderous creatures and forces. I hate the whole way that nature functions. Sex is especially hateful and horrifying, the male penetrating the female, his dick goes into her hole, she’s impregnated, another being grows inside her, and then she must go through a painful ordeal as the new being pushes out of her, only to repeat the whole process in time. Reproduction – what could be more existentially repulsive? How I hate the courting ritual. I was always repelled by my own sex drive, which in my youth never left me alone. I was constantly driven by frustrated desires to do bizarre and unacceptable things with and to women. My soul was in constant conflict about it. I never was able to resolve it. Old age is the only relief. I hate the way the human psyche works, the way we are traumatized and stupidly imprinted in early childhood and have to spend the rest of our lives trying to overcome these infantile mental fixations. And we never ever fully succeed in this endeavor. I hate organized religions. I hate governments. It’s all a lot of power games played out by ambition-driven people, and foisted on the weak, the poor, and on children. Most humans are bullies. Adults pick on children. Older children pick on younger children. Men bully women. The rich bully the poor. People love to dominate. I hate the way humans worship power – one of the most disgusting of all human traits. I hate the human tendency towards revenge and vindictiveness. I hate the way humans are constantly trying to trick and deceive one another, to swindle, to cheat, and take unfair advantage of the innocent, the naïve and the ignorant. I hate the vacuous, false, banal conversation that goes on among people. Sometimes I feel suffocated; I want to flee from it. For me, to be human is, for the most part, to hate what I am. When I suddenly realize that I am one of them, I want to scream in horror.

I always wondered what your type was, but I never imagined it would be a hard-core rocker!” Here we go. I had been hoping he'd be too sleepy for this conversation. “He's not my type. If I had a type it would be...nice. Not some hotheaded, egocentric male slut.” “Did you just call him a male slut?” Jay laughed. “Dang, that's, like, the worst language I've ever heard you use.” I glowered at him, feeling ashamed, and he laughed even harder. “Oh, hey, I've got a joke for you. What do you call someone who hangs out with musicians?” He raised his eyebrows and I shrugged. “I don't know. What?” “A drummer!” I shook my head while he cracked up at his joke for another minute before hounding me again about Kaidan. “All right, so you talked about my CDs, you had some cultural confusion with some of his lingo, then you talked about hot dogs? That can't be everything. You looked seriously intense.” “That's because he was intense, even though we weren't really talking about anything. He made me nervous.” “You thought he was hot, didn't you?” I stared out my window at the passing trees and houses. We were almost to school. “I knew it!” He smacked the steering wheel, loving every second of my discomfort. “This is so weird. Anna Whitt has a crush.” “Fine, yes. He was hot. But it doesn't matter, because there's something about him I don't like. I can't explain it. He's...scary.” “He's not the boy next door, if that's what you mean. Just don't get the good-girl syndrome.” “What's that?” “You know. When a good girl falls for a bad boy and hopes the boy will fall in love and magically want to change his ways. But the only one who ends up changing is the girl.

Long black hair and deep clean blue eyes and skin pale white and lips blood red she's small and thin and worn and damaged. She is standing there. What are you doing here? I was taking a walk and I saw you and I followed you. What do you want. I want you to stop. I breathe hard, stare hard, tense and coiled. There is still more tree for me to destroy I want that fucking tree. She smiles and she steps towards me, toward toward toward me, and she opens he r arms and I'm breathing hard staring hard tense and coiled she puts her arms around me with one hand not he back of my head and she pulls me into her arms and she holds me and she speaks. It's okay. I breathe hard, close my eyes, let myself be held. It's okay. Her voice calms me and her arms warm me and her smell lightens me and I can feel her heart beat and my heart slows and I stop shaking an the Fury melts into her safety an she holds me and she says. Okay. Okay. Okay. Something else comes and it makes me feel weak and scared and fragile and I don't want to be hurt and this feeling is the feeling I have when I know I can be hurt and hurt deeper and more terribly than anything physical and I always fight it and control it and stop it but her voice calms me and her arms warm me and her smell lightens me and I can feel her heart beat and if she let me go right now I would fall and the need and confusion and fear and regret and horror and shame and weakness and fragility are exposed to the soft strength of her open arms and her simple word okay and I start to cry. I start to cry. I want to cry. It comes in waves. THe waves roll deep and from deep the deep within me and I hold her and she holds me tighter and i let her and I let it and I let this and I have not felt this way this vulnerability or allowed myself to feel this way this vulnerability since I was ten years old and I don't know why I haven't and I don't know why I am now and I only know that I am and that it is scary terrifying frightening worse and better than anything I've ever felt crying in her arms just crying in her ams just crying. She guides me to the ground, but she doesn't let me go. THe Gates are open and thirteen years of addiction, violence, hell and their accompaniments are manifesting themselves in dense tears and heavy sobs and a shortness of breath and a profound sense of loss. THe loss inhabits, fills and overwhelms me. It is the loss of a childhood of being a Teeenager of normalcy of happiness of love of trust anon reason of God of Family of friends of future of potential of dignity of humanity of sanity f myself of everything everything everything. I lost everything and I am lost reduced to a mass of mourning, sadness, grief, anguish and heartache. I am lost. I have lost. Everything. Everything. It's wet and Lilly cradles me like a broken Child. My face and her shoulder and her shirt and her hair are wet with my tears. I slow down and I start to breathe slowly and deeply and her hair smells clean and I open my eyes because I want to see it an it is all that I can see. It is jet black almost blue and radiant with moisture. I want to touch it and I reach with one of my hands and I run my hand from the crown along her neck and her back to the base of her rib and it is a thin perfect sheer and I let it slowly drop from the tips of my fingers and when it is gone I miss it. I do it again and again and she lets me do it and she doesn't speak she just cradles me because I am broken. I am broken. Broken. THere is noise and voices and Lilly pulls me in tighter and tighter and I know I pull her in tighter and tighter and I can feel her heart beating and I know she can feel my heart beating and they are speaking our hearts are speaking a language wordless old unknowable and true and we're pulling and holding and the noise is closer and the voices louder and Lilly whispers. You're okay. You're okay. You're okay.