romantic Quotes

“A woman who writes has power, and a woman with power is feared.”

“If instead of saying ‘I am in love’ we say ‘I am loving’ or ‘I will love.’ Our patterns around romantic love are unlikely to change if we do not change our language.”

“Paris also held on to Old World charms, with quiet streets seemingly unchanged since the last century. It was an age before the automobile had taken over the streets, and the romantic image of Paris became a cliche marketing gimmick.”

“‘That wasn’t just a kiss, Cather. There was no just.’”

“You are damaged and broken and unhinged. But so are shooting stars and comets.”

“Love..It can be romantic, platonic, familial, fleeting, everlasting, conditional, unconditional, imbued with sorrow, stoked by sex, sullied by abuse, amplified by kindness, twisted by betrayal, deepened by time, darkened by difficulty, leavened by generosity, nourished by humor and “loaded with promises and commitments” that we may or may not want or keep.

“What I was afraid of was that everyone present, from the insolent marker down to the lowest little stinking, pimply clerk in a greasy collar, would jeer at me and fail to understand when I began to protest and to address them in literary language. For of the point of honour – not of honour, but of the point of honour – one cannot speak among us except in literary language. You can’t allude to the “point of honour” in ordinary language. I was fully convinced (the sense of reality, in spite of all my romanticism!) that they would all simply split their sides with laughter.”

“What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.”

“I wanted ye from the first I saw ye--but I loved ye when you wept in my arms and let me comfort you, that first time at Leoch.”

“Her mother had been a wild, stormy, romantic young woman, who rode like a Cossack, shot like a champion, and smoked (to the scandal of the fascinated regiment) tiny black cheroots in an ivory holder.”

By the end of this moving story, he has gotten rid of everything; he’s torn up the bus pass from the station where they met, blown the unused condoms into balloons and set them adrift from his balcony, and dropped the pot of lemon balm tea she gave him from the balcony, too.

“His eyes are a midnight moment filled with memories, the only windows into my world.”

“I’m up. Spinning. Scanning. Scared. They found us is the only thing I can think of. My stomach is a flimsy crepe, my heart a raging woodpecker, my blood a river of anxiety.”

“Every time I came back from Sephy’s, I flinched at the sight of the shack that was meant to be my home. Why couldn’t my family live in a house like Sephy’s! Why didn’t any naught I knew of live in a house like Sephy’s? Looking at our rundown hovel, I could feel the usual burning, churning sensation begin to rise up inside me. My stomach tightened, my eyes began to narrow... So I forced myself to look away.”

“Eventually el-Kadel helps Eleonora free her fiancé, but by that point Eleonora has fallen in love with el-Kadel...”

“Another postmodern sunset, rich in romantic imagery. Why try to describe it? It’s enough to say that everything in our field of vision seemed to exist in order to gather the light of this event.”