“It’s bullshit to think of friendship and romance as being different. They’re not. They’re just variations of the same love. Variations of the same desire to be close.”

“There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”

“Usually adult males who are unable to make emotional connections with the women they choose to be intimate with are frozen in time, unable to allow themselves to love for fear that the loved one will abandon them. If the first woman they passionately loved, the mother, was not true to her bond of love, then how can they trust that their partner will be true to love. Often in their adult relationships these men act out again and again to test their partner’s love. While the rejected adolescent boy imagines that he can no longer receive his mother’s love because he is not worthy, as a grown man he may act out in ways that are unworthy and yet demand of the woman in his life that she offer him unconditional love. This testing does not heal the wound of the past, it merely reenacts it, for ultimately the woman will become weary of being tested and end the relationship, thus reenacting the abandonment. This drama confirms for many men that they cannot put their trust in love. They decide that it is better to put their faith in being powerful, in being dominant.”

“Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage.”

“That’s what real love amounts to – letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending – performing. You get to love your pretence. It’s true, we’re locked in an image, an act – and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image, they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it, they feel like you’re trying to steal their most precious possession.”

“It happens like this. “One day you meet someone and for some inexplicable reason, you feel more connected to this stranger than anyone else–closer to them than your closest family. Perhaps this person carries within them an angel–one sent to you for some higher purpose; to teach you an important lesson or to keep you safe during a perilous time. What you must do is trust in them–even if they come hand in hand with pain or suffering–the reason for their presence will become clear in due time.”Though here is a word of warning–you may grow to love this person but remember they are not yours to keep. Their purpose isn’t to save you but to show you how to save yourself. And once this is fulfilled; the halo lifts and the angel leaves their body as the person exits your life. They will be a stranger to you once more.————————————————-It’s so dark right now, I can’t see any light around me. That’s because the light is coming from you. You can’t see it but everyone else can.”

“There is always something left to love.”

“Someday you’ll find someone special again. People who’ve been in love once usually do. It’s in their nature.”

“If my love were an ocean,there would be no more land.If my love were a desert,you would see only sand.If my love were a star-late at night, only light.And if my love could grow wings,I’d be soaring in flight.”

“No woman wants to be in submission to a man who isn’t in submission to God!”

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.”

“When it’s gone, you’ll know what a gift love was. You’ll suffer like this. So go back and fight to keep it.”

“I was blind and heart broken and didn’t want to do anything and Gus burst into my room and shouted, “I have wonderful news!” And I was like, “I don’t really want to hear wonderful news right now,” and Gus said, “This is wonderful news you want to hear,” and I asked him, “Fine, what is it?” and he said, “You are going to live a good and long life filled with great and terrible moments that you cannot even imagine yet!”

“Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.”

“What are the chances you’d ever meet someone like that? he wondered. Someone you could love forever, someone who would forever love you back? And what did you do when that person was born half a world away? The math seemed impossible.”