Series Lover Quotes

There are few sights sadder than a ruined book.

The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.

The guy stroked his goatee. "What do you call twenty guys watching the world series?" "The New York Yankees," Butch replied.

I always knew there was no one who is going to accept my flaws and understand my brokenness.And i knew it very well that nobody would hold my hand when the wind of darkness overcome my life so i just pushed them,i pushed them all away.

Spouses and lovers may come and go, but our children are our children forever.

Choose your partners wisely. Always use protection, and always protect your heart.

You kiss the back of my legs and I want to cry. Only the sun has come this close, only the sun.

When my assistant strolled into my office one idle Tuesday morning, I had no way of knowing this would be the moment everything changed. A series of dominoes tipping with a clack, all leading to an unexpected and crazy end. One I fear I won't ever recover from.

Don't be an asshole" Rhage summed up the regurgitation with two words: "Kettle.Black." Fucking hell. "Did you guys plan that out?" "Yeah and if you don't fight us"- Hollywood bit down on the grape Tootsie Pop-"we'll do it again- only with the dance moves this time" "Spare me." "Fine.Unless you agree to home it,we WILL rock the dance moves." To prove the point ,the moron linked his palms behind his head and started doing something obscene with his hips. Which was backed up by a series of,"Uh-huh,uh-huh,ohhhh, yeeeeeeah,who's your daddy..." The others looked at Rhage like he'd grown a horn in the middle of his forehead. Nothing unusual there. And Tohr knew that, in spite of this ridiculous diversion,if he didn't cave,the lot of them would crawl so far up his ass,he'd be coughing up shitkickers. Rhage wheeled around,shoved out his butt,and started slapping his moneymaker like it was bread dough. "For the love of the Virgin Scribe,"Z muttered "put us out of this misery, and go the fuck home" Someone else chimed in, "You know, I never thought there were advantages to being blind..." "Or deaf" "Or mute," somebody added

America, my dear, I hope you find something, in this cage worth fighting for.

There are full series I love whose last chapter I’ve never read. I hate the feeling of something ending.

It's been written that a lover is apt to be as full of secrets from himself as is the object of his love from him.

Bedtime is daytime, and we come into bloom after midnight.

Fucking hell. "Did you guys plan that out?" "Yeah, and if you don't fight us"--Hollywood bit down on his grape Tootsie-Pop--"we'll do it again--only with dance moves this time." "Spare me." "Fine. Unless you agree to home it, we will rock the dance moves.". To prove the point, the moron linked his palms behind his head and started doing something obscene with his hips. Which was backed up by a series of, "Uh-huh, uh-huh, ohhh, yeeeeeeaaaah, who's your daddy....

You can't be gone. I need you here, with me. What am I going to do without you?

Scusi mia bella*, but it runs in the blood of all Italians to be skillful lovers. So you have to get used to this.

And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun/ And she forgot the blue above the trees,/ And she forgot the dells where waters run,/ And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze;/ She had no knowledge when the day was done,/ And the new morn she saw not: but in peace/ Hung over her sweet basil evermore,/ And moisten'd it with tears unto the core.

I love you," he whispered. "In all my life, its been only you.

Somehow my soul remembers it all, hers doesn't.

There's something to say about inspiration - when it comes into your life...the feeling is insatiable.

The guy stroked his goatee. “What do you call twenty guys watching the World Series?” “The New York Yankees,” Butch replied. The vampire laughed in a loud burst, whipped the baseball cap off his head, and slapped it on his thigh.

With painstaking rumination, the tips of his fingers grazed over my neck, a deafening silence. I didn't move as his hand paused at the base of my throat. He listened to the arrhythmic beating of my heart, my pulse thumping beneath his fingers. He kissed me along my neckline and throat. I almost burst apart from the longing. My blood burned for him.

He wasn’t looking for a soulmate. That would require having a soul to share, and he’d sold his off long ago

The road for hell for me is paved with everything I would do for you, and that list never fucking ends.

Mr. Normal stepped forward and offered him a Scotch bottle. "You look like you could use some." Yeah, you think? Butch took a swig. "Thanks." "So can we kill him now?" said the one with the goatee and the baseball hat. Beth's man spoke harshly. "Back off, V." "Why? He's just a human." "And my shellan is half-human. The man doesn't die just because he's not one of us." "Jesus, you've changed your tune." "So you need to catch up, brother." Butch got to his feet. If his death was going to be debated, he wanted in on the discussion. "I appreciate the support," he said to Beth's boy. "But I don't need it." He went over to the guy with the hat, discreetly switching his grip on the bottle's neck in case he had to crack the damn thing over a head. He moved in tight, so their noses were almost touching. He could feel the vampire heating up, priming for a fight. "I'm happy to take you on, asshole," Butch said. "I'll probably end up losing, but I fight dirty, so I'll make you hurt while you kill me." Then he eyed the guy's hat. "Though I hate clocking the shit out of another Red Sox fan." There was a shout of laughter from behind him. Someone said, "This is gonna be fun to watch." The guy in front of Butch narrowed his eyes into slits. "You true about the Sox?" "Born and raised in Southie. Haven't stopped grinning since '04." There was a long pause. The vampire snorted. "I don't like humans." "Yeah, well, I'm not too crazy about you bloodsuckers." Another stretch of silence. The guy stroked his goatee. "What do you call twenty guys watching the World Series?" "The New York Yankees," Butch replied. The vampire laughed in a loud burst, whipped the baseball cap off his head, and slapped it on his thigh. Just like that, the tension was broken.

B-b-but who will I have cleaning marathons with?” “Casey. I’ll be there in spirit.” “She’s not neurotic and cranky like you.” “You’ll miss that, ay?” “Hell yes, I’ll miss that! When you’re obsessive and pissy, you tell those floors who’s boss. They won’t shine like that when Casey scrubs them. And don’t get me started on our Covenant Series discussions. The girl thinks Alex should pick Seth. Seth, Em. How can I clean with someone who isn’t Team Aiden? It’s like...madness. Madness on Earth. The fucking apocalypse—” “Whitney,” I chuckled, squeezing her tighter, “I assure you, you’ll survive. The second she starts running her mouth about Aiden, just spray her with bleach. That’ll teach her a lesson.” -Emma and Whitney

The Lord must have created coffee to reward humans for those bad times they sometimes have on Earth. Having charged your heart and brain with a cup of coffee, you’re ready to face the challenges of life. A good cup of coffee makes life seem better.

Since then her life had been peaceful and happy. She had allowed herself to be worshipped by that strangely captivating lover of hers, whose passionately willful temperament, tempered by that persistent, sunny gaiety, she had up to now only half understood.

Lovers of small numbers go benignly potty, Believe all tales are thirteen chapters long, Have animal doubles, carry pentagrams, Are Millerites, Baconians, Flat-Earth-Men. Lovers of big numbers go horribly mad, would have the Swiss abolished, all of us Well-purged, somatotyped, baptised, taught baseball: They empty bars, spoil parties, run for Congress.

We are the memory keepers and the trappers of time; stealers of stolen glances and breathless lungs from all that have been taken away. We are the noticers of subtle signs hidden in plain sight by a benevolent universe bigger than we'd ever believe...We are the directionless wanderers and the destinationless travelers and we are the crumpled map that never got packed to join us. We are the cinematic lovers and the translucent curtains saturated in light. The soundtrack to the moments without sounds and the swiftness that two bodies can become one in the stillness of a second. We, says the last string pulled out, the final string that kept it all together, balled up tight, filling us after all this time, We, are the chasers of the light.

Life can be hard sometimes,” I say. “My mom and dad taught me that when you're not sure if you can keep going, you just need to take it one day at a time, one step at a time. Can you do that for me?

Beauty is an illusion, created by Mother Nature to drive the human species in the path of reproduction. In reality, beauty is irrelevant to human life, especially in a relationship. What you today perceive as beautiful and special, over time, becomes not so special. That’s how the human brain works. It is not beauty that keeps a relationship alive, it is attachment. Without attachment, a naked body is merely a lifeless sex toy.

Remember? We have a rematch. And this time, it’s my turn to shine.” With his goggles on, Sterling got into his stance, keeping an eye on the Professor. “Oh? I didn’t realize that you were so dull.” I put my goggles on and took my stance as well, making sure that Professor Trinkott was within my line of vision. Challenge accepted. “Ha, ha, joke all you want, Alvara. Just don’t come crying to me afterwards.” “I don’t cry when I win.

What the hell are you doing with my underwear?” He kept his response flippant. “I don’t have this color in my collection.

Gifted Deirdre cast the spell that enabled our souls to eventually be reunited. She couldn't bear for us to be apart, and neither could I.

The most crucial thing to know about true love is that, it is not something you can find, rather you need to build it with the person in whose eyes you see your soul.

Life is just a series of obstacles preventing you from reading your book.

Maybe this then was the definition of love. When you wanted someone, needed her, adored her still, even when you were utterly furious and quite ready to tie her to the bed just to keep her from going out and making more trouble

I’d love to be a tabletop in Paris, where food is art and life combined in one, where people gather and talk for hours. I want lovers to meet over me. I’d want to be covered in drops of candle wax and breadcrumbs and rings from the bottom of wineglasses. I would never be lonely, and I would always serve a good purpose.

His power reached out to her like physical touch of a lover, sending tingles over her skin. His sculptured body moved in a sensual, yet deadly manner. Her hands itched to touch him, to feel his warm skin under her palms. She closed her eyes to stop the urge to go to him, shivered, and cursed her body for responding to him.

spring time is for lovers because...it's so fresh and new!

It is not beauty that keeps a relationship alive, it is attachment. Without attachment, a naked body is merely a lifeless sex toy.

Wine knows that having passion for life is an art itself.

And among many understandings and misunderstandings, Lany and Antony once again were victims of an illusory love...

A good cup of coffee makes life feel better.

What she read was a series of short connected lyrics, “Isis in Darkness.” The Egyptian Queen of Heaven and Earth was wandering in the Underworld, gathering up pieces of the murdered and dismembered body of her lover Osiris. At the same time, it was her own body she was putting back together; and it was also the physical universe. She was creating the universe by an act of love.

Flight is many things. Something clean and swift, like a bird skimming across the sky. Or something filthy and crawling; a series of crablike movements through figurative and literal slime, a process of creeping ahead, jumping sideways, running backward. It is sleeping in fields and river bottoms. It is bellying for miles along an irrigation ditch. It is back roads, spur railroad lines, the tailgate of a wildcat truck, a stolen car and a dead couple in lovers' lane. It is food pilfered from freight cars, garments taken from clotheslines; robbery and murder, sweat and blood. The complex made simple by the alchemy of necessity

...lovers, even those who are married, always exist autonomously of one another, no matter how close they are or how long they've known each other. That's why jealously can flare in even the most intimate relationships. Because you know that at some basic level this person exists separately from you. No mater how close you are, the landscape of their life is always tinted a different hue than your own." - Hunter to Joanna

She’s purring,” I exclaimed in delight. “Stop taming the battlecat,” Draven said, looking slightly annoyed. “She’s a killing machine. Not a house pet.” “Says the man who snuggled beside her all night,” I retorted.

Nothing is more hallowing than the union of kindred spirits in art. At the moment of meeting, the art lover transcends himself. At once he is and is not. He catches a glimpse of Infinity, but words cannot voice his delight, for the eye has no tongue. Freed from the fetters of matter, his spirit moves in the rhythm of things. It is thus that art becomes akin to religion and ennobles mankind. It is this which makes a masterpiece something sacred. In the old days the veneration in which the Japanese held the work of the great artist was intense. The tea-masters guarded their treasures with religious secrecy, and it was often necessary to open a whole series of boxes, one within another, before reaching the shrine itself--the silken wrapping within whose soft folds lay the holy of holies. Rarely was the object exposed to view, and then only to the initiated.

When I read, my mind had the tendency to wander around, embroiling itself in the common points between the plots and my life, feeling empathy for the characters' inner struggles, almost as if they were merging with my personal conflicts.

Yet her experience had consisted less in a series of pure disappointments than in a series of substitutions. Continually it had happened that what she had desired had not been granted her, and that what had been granted her she had not desired. So she viewed with an approach to equanimity the now cancelled days when Donald had been her undeclared lover, and wondered what unwished-for thing Heaven might send her in place of him.

They’d used sex instead of communication in the past, and it had turned out disastrously.

I always thought 'love at first sight' was silly and incredibly irresponsible. Then, you came along and you flipped it on me. I understand it now. I do! ~Sheriff Derrick Decker

The lover of God never knows the words “too much.” Those who accuse others of loving God or religion too much really do not love God at all, nor do they know the meaning of love.

While a child breathes, a smile blooms and a hope lives.

Enjoy the wine, don’t spill the night…

Best wines with character have abyss within.

You left and I cried tears of blood. My sorrow grows. Its not just that You left. But when You left my eyes went with You. Now, how will I cry? The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.

Beauty is irrelevant to human life, especially in a relationship. What you today perceive as beautiful and special, over time, becomes not so special. That’s how the human brain works. It is not beauty that keeps a relationship alive, it is attachment. Without attachment, a naked body is merely a lifeless sex toy.

Mm…hmm. I bet he’s helping you. Right into his bed and you’d be a fool not to test him out. Shit. From what you’ve told me, any woman would love to be in that man’s bed. I bet he’s got a nice cock and is a sweet lover too

If a man keeps the law, I know he is a lover of his neighbour. But he is not a lover because he keeps the law: he keeps the law because he is a lover. No heart will be content with the law for love. The law cannot fulfil love.

I stroke them, and they always like that, because old people don’t have anyone who touches them, and I get them hooked on a TV series, because nobody wants to die before the final episode. Some of them find comfort in prayer, but there are lots of atheists here, and they don’t pray. What’s most important is not to leave them on their own.

This Lunar Beauty This lunar beauty Has no history, Is complete and early; If beauty later Bear any feature It had a lover And is another. This like a dream Keeps other time, And daytime is The loss of this; For time is inches And the heart's changes Where ghost has haunted Lost and wanted. But this was never A ghost's endeavour Nor, finished this, Was ghost at ease; And till it pass Love shall not near The sweetness here Nor sorrow take His endless look.

There was something to be said for the stoicism of a native New Englander. Not much riled them besides a World Series loss or another region claiming to have the best pizza—everyone knew the best was from New Haven’s brick ovens in Wooster Square.

To the skeptics, perhaps the events that are to follow were just a coincidence and nothing more than a series of random accidents that led me to where I am today. But to the lovers and poets and dreamers, perhaps you might agree that the story about to unfold is something more. You might even agree that there are times when coincidences are so powerful that they don’t really seem like coincidences anymore. Times when you come across events that seem too strange, or too strong, to be anything other than Fate—a grand design that incorporates everything from the career paths we take, the friends we meet along the way, and the partners we choose to spend our lives with. Times like these make you question that maybe nothing in this world happens by accident. Maybe everything really does happen for a reason, as some prewritten destiny slowly takes shape and shoves you down a path—or in my case, a mountain side.

Love is not the primeval surge of libidinal lust that a person receives when meeting a suitable partner for the first time. Love in the truest sense of the term is born much later in a relationship, when both sides get to the know the truest selves of each other.

Come on, Oliver. I’m saying no.” “Is it a fake no? Because your body keeps saying yes.” “My body doesn’t know anything.” “What does your heart say?” “That’s number one on my list of unenlightened organs. It believes anything it hears. It’s screwed up in some way.

You think I don’t know what I want? You think I love the idea of relying on my looks for life? No! It’s pathetic! In my head, I have a nice, quiet, normal job that involves me running my own business. I carry a briefcase around my office with important documents, I have a nice assistant who calls me boss, and people ask me questions—they ask for my advice because I matter! I’m important to them! I’m recognized as something more than a pretty face and a pair of legs. I have a brain and interests and thoughts about religion, and poverty, and economics. I’m not a miserable girl with a number attached to her chest, stripping her clothes off in a room full of people.

His first thought as he stared death in the face was that he was never going to meet his daughter. At least not on this side of the Fade. His second and final was that he couldn't believe he'd never told Blay he loved him. In all the minutes and hours and nights of his life, in all the words he'd spoken to the male over the years they'd known each other, he'd only ever pushed him away. And now it was too late.

So if I asked you to wear my skirt and juggle my high heels, you would?” I joked. I could only see Andrew's face in profile, but a grin overtook his earlier grim expression, and he laughed. “I draw the line at wearing women’s clothing.” “Are you sure?” I whispered seductively, nibbling on his earlobe. “That’s cheating,” he said, his breath hitching. I kissed down his neck. “If all else fails, I’ll never rule out using my womanly wiles.” “I refuse to be used as a pawn by my devious lover,” he countered, grinning. I abruptly pulled away from him. “Ah, well, it never hurts to try.

Life is made up of a series of lies. Love? It’s a fairytale some person made up, so they didn’t have to face the cold, hard fact that we are all alone. You come into this world alone, and you leave it alone. Loneliness, it’s the one the thing we fear most. It means you’re forgotten, you’ve been rejected, or you’re overlooked.

Looking for something?" I asked, pointing my blade toward the piles of discarded books, scrolls, and papers. Her eyes never left mine, nor did she make a move. Interesting. Her gaze narrowed. "Damn, you are durable. I really thought dropping three stories on you would buy me a little more time.” I swiped my blade upward as she passed me. She took one step, then another, before stopping. I turned and flicked the blood from my blade as her arm fell to the floor with a thud. She hissed and grabbed where it had once been. "That was a hundred dollar jacket, you asshole!" she spat, looking at her ruined clothes, unconcerned with the missing limb. "Excuse me?

Toulouse is to lose. Good on us,
 That one never lied And said it’s still alive. A full life is a series Of incompletions. Whole with holes. Entirely fragmented. Carrying one-days, Sentences, Old lovers, And looks. Absolutes turn men and women 
Into machines that need 
Numbers to work.
 But people were never meant to work Just to live.

He was making up a story, and she was buying into his bullshit. That was a recipe for disaster

How was it that the one man who could take their company down appeared to be the only one who believed in her?

Yes," she whispered. He kissed her forehead."Yes what,my leelan?" "I will marry you

A Blessing on the Poets Patient earth-digger, impatient fire-maker, Hungry word-taker and roving sound-lover, Sharer and saver, muser and acher, You who are open to hide or uncover, Time-keeper and –hater, wake-sleeper, sleep-waker; May language’s language, the silence that lies Under each word, move you over and over, Turning you, wondering, back to surprise.

Come, whoever you are! Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving. This is not a caravan of despair. It doesn’t matter if you’ve broken your vow a thousand times, still and yet again come!

In the wee hours of the morning, the Edenic lovers wound themselves around each other, flesh against flesh, sleepy and sated in a large, white bed. Lightness and darkness, innocence and experience, kissed and caressed in the warmth and acceptance created by their love. The dark angel whispered to his muse in Italian until she fell asleep in his arms, happier than she had ever been. She was loved.

We can ask for forgiveness, from a god, from a friend, a lover, even ourselves. We can ask for forgiveness from all of the people we’ve wronged, but we can never get back the one thing we’re truly hoping to find when we asked: our innocence—the person we were before that piece of us was taken, ripped away and shattered at our feet, leaving us to learn how to pick ourselves back up and move past it.

Excerpts from the Angel Handbook Be careful how you unfold your wings -- there are some in the world who are not content unless their teeth are full of feathers ... You will meet some whose faces give a glw as if they once had halos: these are the lovers, you will make a lot of love and your flights, even though you are careful to keep them invisible, will make those who love you sad: they will not understand that you never go anyplace you're not meant to be.

I let my eyelids fall closed. In my mind, Draven’s voice rang out over and over, shouting my name. His voice was more powerful than the sea. More primordial than the stars. My name was on his lips as he promised unspeakable darkness to any who came between us.

The emotion between the two young lovers was a sweet tang in the air. It coated his tongue, and he licked his lips, eager for more. He shared their excitement and hope, and though he had promised himself he wouldn’t watch their love again, that promise went ignored.

the dark lady who inspired Shakespeare’s sonnets, the lady of Arosa may remain forever mysterious.” (Unfortunately, because Schrödinger had so many girlfriends and lovers in his life, as well as illegitimate children, it is impossible to determine precisely who served as the muse for this historic equation.) Over the next several months, in a remarkable series of papers, Schrödinger showed that the mysterious rules found by Niels Bohr for the hydrogen atom were simple consequences of his equation. For the first time, physicists had a detailed picture of the interior of the atom, by which one could, in principle, calculate the properties of more complex atoms, even molecules. Within months, the new quantum theory became a steamroller, obliterating many of the most puzzling questions about the atomic world, answering the greatest mysteries that had stumped scientists since the Greeks. The

And this doesn’t just mean taking physical risks. The science shows that other risks—emotional, intellectual, creative, social—work just as well. “To reach flow,” explains psychiatrist Ned Hallowell,22 “one must be willing to take risks. The lover must be willing to risk rejection to enter this state. The athlete must be willing to risk physical harm, even loss of life, to enter this state. The artist must be willing to be scorned and despised by critics and the public and still push on. And the average person—you and me—must be willing to fail, look foolish, and fall flat on our faces should we wish to enter this state.

It was Draven. He’d come up behind me. I jumped for a second time that morning, unable to help myself, then glared up at him. “How did you even do that?” “I have the ears of an exmoor and the tread of a fenrir,” he said with a smirk. “I’d say comparing yourself to wild animals was fitting, except the exmoor seems highly intelligent,” I muttered.

Have you been listening to a word I’ve been saying? I don’t do games. I don’t do one-night stands. I don’t do affairs. Usually, when I meet a woman and take interest in her, I will be loyal to her, and only her. I expect the same. I don’t share well. I’m all for exclusiveness in everything I do, and own. I’m not afraid of commitment or hard work. You’re right; I’m not new to this. I’ve been in many relationships. This is good news, Sophie. It means I won’t waste your time. Rest assured, if I’m with you it’s because that’s exactly where I want to be. If ever I want out of a relationship, I leave. My commitment ends there. It’s simple enough and this is the only thing that makes sense to me.

In matters of affection, the rules of engagement at Empire High were detailed yet unambiguous, an extension of procedures established in junior high, a set of guidelines that couldn't have been clearer if they'd been posted on the schoolhouse door. If you were a girl and your heart inclined toward a particular boy, you had one of your girlfriends make inquiries from one of that boy's friends. Such contact represented the commencement of a series of complex negotiations, the opening rounds of which were handled by friends. Boy's friend A might report to Girl's friend B that the boy in question considered her a fox, or, if he felt particularly strongly, a major fox. Those experienced in these matters knew that it was wise to proceed cautiously, since too much ardor could delay things for weeks. The girl in question might be in negotiations with other parties, and no boy wanted to be on record as considering a girl a major fox only to discover that she considered him merely cool. Friends had to be instructed carefully about how much emotional currency they could spend, since rogue emotions led to inflation, lessening the value of everyone's feelings. Once a level of affection within the comfort zone of both parties was agreed upon, the principals could then meet for the exchange of mementos - rings, jackets, photos, key chains - to seal the deal, always assuming that seconds had properly represented the lovers to begin with.

He’d been spending more time in the past lately. He liked to close his eyes and let his memories overtake him. A life, remembered, is a series of photographs and disconnected short films: the school play when he was nine, his father beaming in the front row; clubbing with Arthur in Toronto, under whirling lights; a lecture hall at NYU. An executive, a client, running his hands through his hair as he talked about his terrible boss. A procession of lovers, remembered in details: a set of dark blue sheets, a perfect cup of tea, a pair of sunglasses, a smile. The Brazilian pepper tree in a friend’s backyard in Silver Lake. A bouquet of tiger lilies on a desk. Robert's smile. His mother's hands, knitting while she listened to the BBC.

Get it off,” she said, jerking their bound wrists up and holding them up under his nose. “I thought perhaps we might at least introduce ourselves,” he said lightly. “Get it off!” “What shall I call you?” he asked as he pulled her to the table and removed the silver dome on the platter. Mutton stew, by the smell of it. Not a single knife to be had. “Lover?” “Rest assured you’ll never need to call me anything at all!” she said with admirable conviction. “You may reduce your rancor and save it for when you might need it,” he said calmly. “I am as enchanted by this arrangement as you are. May I remove your brooch?” “Pardon?” “Your brooch,” he said, looking at the small gold ring-shaped brooch that held her shawl on her shoulder. Her eyes narrowed. Jack knew that look and gestured to their wrists. “Rein in your thoughts, lass. I need something to get it off.

He terrifies me, Aunt Peg.” I don’t have the backbone to say it to her face. “Oliver is such a self-contained person. He’s always so calm, so at ease, so refined. I’m the one who’s always losing my mind over nothing. He is unbelievably amazing in a way I don’t know if I can reciprocate. His voice is calm and patient. It makes me feel like he will sit me down and tell me everything’s going to be okay. And his eyes. Have you seen his eyes? They’re so kind and gentle.

I do not suppose that the youth was one whom ordinary people would call a lover of money; I do not believe he was covetous, or desired even the large increase of his possessions; I imagine he was just like most good men of property: he valued his possesions--looked on them as a good. From this false way of thinking, and all the folly and unreality that accompany it, the Lord would deliver the young man. As the thing was, he was a slave; for a man is in bondage to what ever he cannot part with that is less than himself.

Don't cure me, Mother, I couldn't bear the bath of your bitter spittle. No salve no ointment in a doctor's tube, no brew in a witch's kettle, no lover's mouth, no friend or god could heal me if your heart turned in anathema, grew stone against me. Defenseless and naked as the day I slid from you twin voices keening and the cord pulsing our common protests, I'm coming back back to you woman, flesh of your woman's flesh, your fairest, most faithful mirror, my love transversing me like a filament wired to the noonday sun. Receive me, Mother.

Degrading oneself for the sake of the beloved reveals the disruptiveness of the love relation. The person in love agrees to sacrifice social identity for the sake of winning the other’s love. When in love, all other considerations disappear before the response of the beloved. This experience of a complete loss of one’s usual coordinates is at once the appeal and the trauma of love. Though we tend to think of love as a pleasant experience, it actually produces much more suffering than pleasure. We feel pleasure when our lives move along smoothly and with relative security, but love is always rocky and insecure. As we fall in love, we can never be sure if the other truly loves us in return, and we spend our time worrying about what the other is doing. This is why it is easy to picture the lover phoning a beloved an abundance of times when there is no answer. The lover experiences of the trauma of love with each unrequited phone call. Life no longer just goes on when we love. Instead, it bombards us with a series of traumatic jolts that preclude any peace of mind. Our very symbolic identity loses its stable coordinates.

There have been plenty of people in my life - family, friends, colleagues, lovers, a forecast of the usual suspects that make a person's social circle - but mine has always felt a little bent out of shape. None of the relationships I've ever formed with another human being feel real to me, more like a series of missed connections. People might recognize my face, they may even know my name, but they'll never know the real me. Nobody does. I've always been selfish with the true thoughts and feelings inside my head. I don't share them with anyone because I can't. There is a version of me I can only ever be with myself.

Sand burns outside their windows in every direction. Compass needles spin in their twinned minds: everywhere they look, they are greeted by horizon, deep gulps of blue. People think of the green pastoral when they think of lovers in nature. Those English poets used the vales and streams to douse their lusts into verse. But the desert offers something that no forest brook or valley ever can: distance. A cloudless rooming house for couples. Skies that will host any visitors’ dreams with the bald hospitality of pure space. In terms of an ecology that can support two lovers in hot pursuit of each other, this is the place; everywhere you look, you’ll find monuments to fevered longing. Craters beg for rain all year long. Moths haunt the succulents, winging sticky pollen from flower to flower.

And still I had not admitted to myself that I should have stopped seeing Albertine long before, for she had entered, in relation to me, that wretched period when a being, dispersed in space and time, is no longer a woman in our eyes, but a series of events on which we cannot shed light, a series of insoluble problems, a sea which, like Xerxes, we absurdly try to beat, to punish it for all that it has swallowed up. Once this period has begun, one is inevitably defeated. Happy are those who see it in time not to be drawn into a useless, exhausting battle, surrounded on all sides by the limits of our imagination, where jealousy struggles so humiliatingly that the same man who once, if the eyes of his constant companion fell for a moment on another man, imagined a conspiracy, suffered who knows what torments, may later allow her to go out alone, sometimes with the man he knows is her lover, choosing this torture which is at least familiar in preference to the terrible unknown. It is a question of finding a rhythm which one afterward follows from habit.

1595, Richard Field, fellow-alumnus of the King Edward grammar school in Stratford-upon-Avon, printed The lives of the noble Grecians and Romanes, compared together by that grave learned philosopher and historiographer, Plutarke of Chaeronea: translated out of Greeke into French by James Amiot, abbot of Bellozane, Bishop of Auxerre, one of the Kings privie counsell, and great Amner of France, and out of French into English, by Thomas North. This was the book that got Shakespeare thinking seriously about politics: monarchy versus republicanism versus empire; the choices we make and their tragic consequences; the conflict between public duty and private desire. He absorbed classical thought, but was not enslaved to it. Shakespeare was a thinker who always made it new, adapted his source materials, and put his own spin on them. In the case of Plutarch, he feminized the very masculine Roman world. Brutus and Caesar are seen through the prism of their wives, Portia and Calpurnia; Coriolanus through his mother, Volumnia; Mark Antony through his lover, Cleopatra. Roman women were traditionally silent, confined to the domestic sphere. Cleopatra is the very antithesis of such a woman, while Volumnia is given the full force of that supreme Ciceronian skill, a persuasive rhetorical voice.40 Timon of Athens is alone and unhappy precisely because his obsession with money has cut him off from the love of, and for, women (the only females in Timon’s strange play are two prostitutes). Paradoxically, the very masculinity of Plutarch’s version of ancient history stimulated Shakespeare into demonstrating that women are more than the equal of men. Where most thinkers among his contemporaries took the traditional view of female inferiority, he again and again wrote comedies in which the girls are smarter than the boys—Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing, Rosalind in As You Like It, Portia in The Merchant of Venice—and tragedies in which women exercise forceful authority for good or ill (Tamora, Cleopatra, Volumnia, and Cymbeline’s Queen in his imagined antiquity, but also Queen Margaret in his rendition of the Wars of the Roses).41

All the girl could remember was the terrible, irremediable tension between wanting to be somewhere and wanting to be nowhere. And the plant, crazed by its proximity to rich familiar soil, tried repeatedly to Leap out of her. This caused her hand to lift, holding a long knife, and plummet earthward, rooting into the fleshy chest of her lover, feeling deeper and deeper for moisture. The Joshua tree’s greatest victory over the couple comes four months into their stay: they sign a lease. A bungalow on the outskirts of the national park, with a fence to keep out the coyotes and an outdoor shower. When the shower water gets into their mouths, it tastes like poison. Strange reptiles hug the fence posts, like colorful olives on toothpicks. Andy squeezes Angie’s hand and returns the gaze of these tiny monsters; he feels strangely bashful as they bugle their throats at him. Four months into his desert sojourn, and he still doesn’t know the name of anything. Up close, the bungalow looks a lot like a shed. The bloated vowels of his signature on the landlord’s papers make him think of a large hand blurring underwater.