People Like To Say

“People like to say love is unconditional, 

but it's not, and even if it was unconditional, it's still never free. 

There's always an expectation attached. 

They always want something in return. 

Like they want you to be happy or whatever and that

makes you automatically responsible for their 

happiness because they won't be happy unless you are...

 I just don't want that responsibility.” 

~ Katja Millay, The Sea of Tranquility

Maybe It's Like You Said Before

“Maybe it's like you said before, all of us being cracked open. 

Like each of us starts out as a watertight vessel. 

And then things happen - these people leave us, 

or don’t love us, or don’t get us, or we don’t get them, 

and we lose and fail and hurt one another. 

And the vessel starts to crack in places. And I mean, 

yeah once the vessel cracks open, the end becomes inevitable. 

Once it starts to rain inside the Osprey, it will never be remodeled. 

But there is all this time between when the cracks start to

open up and when we finally fall apart. 

And it's only that time that we see one another

because we see out of ourselves through our cracks

and into others through theirs. 

When did we see each other face to face? 

Not until you saw into my cracks and I saw into yours. 

Before that, we were just looking at ideas of each other, 

like looking at your window shade, but never seeing inside. 

But once the vessel cracks, the light can get in. The light can get out.” 

~ John Green, Paper Towns

I Know Enough

“I know enough to know that no woman should 

ever marry a man who hated his mother.” 

~ Martha Gellhorn, Selected Letters

Never Marry at All

“Never marry at all, Dorian. 

Men marry because they are tired, women, because they are curious: 

both are disappointed.” 

~ Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Every Couple

“Every couple needs to argue now and then. 

Just to prove that the relationship is strong enough to survive. 

Long-term relationships, the ones that matter, 

are all about weathering the peaks and the valleys.” 

~ Nicholas Sparks, Safe Haven

Man When You Lose Your Laugh

“Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.” 

~ Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

When We're Incomplete

“When we're incomplete, 

we're always searching for somebody to complete us. 

When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, 

we find that we're still unfulfilled, 

we blame our partners and take up with somebody more promising. 

This can go on and on -- series polygamy --

until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimensions to our lives,  

we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment. 

Nobody else can provide it for us, 

and to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously 

and to program for eventual failure every relationship we enter.” 

~ Tom Robbins

Therefore, Dear Sir

“Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and

try to sing out with the pain it causes you. 

For those who are near you are far away... 

and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast... 

be happy about your growth, 

in which of course you can't take anyone with you,

 and be gentle with those who stay behind; 

be confident and calm in front of them 

and don't torment them with your doubts 

and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, 

which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. 

Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, 

which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; 

when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own 

and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, 

who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust... 

and don't expect any understanding; 

but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, 

and have faith that in this love there is a strength 

and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish 

without having to step outside it.” 

~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

I Want to be In a Relationship

“I want to be in a relationship where you telling me you love me is just a ceremonious validation of what you already show me.” 

~ Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

I Suffer From Girlnextdooritis

“I suffer from girlnextdooritis where the guy is 

friends with you and that's it.” 

~ Taylor Swift

I've Been Fighting to Be

“I’ve been fighting to be who I am all my life. 

What’s the point of being who I am, 

if I can’t have the person who was worth all the fighting for?”

~ Stephanie Lennox, I Don't Remember You

To Be Fully Seen by Somebody

“To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow - 

this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.” 

~ Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Maybe Our Girlfriends

“Maybe our girlfriends are our soulmates 

and guys are just people to have fun with.” 

~ Candace Bushnell, Sex and the City

Holding Eleanor's Hand

“Holding Eleanor's hand was like holding a butterfly. 

Or a heartbeat. 

Like holding something complete, and completely alive.” 

~ Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park

Come Sleep With Me

“Come sleep with me: 

We won't make Love, Love will make us.”

~ Julio Cortázar

I Will Love You Always

“I will love you always. 

When this red hair is white, I will still love you. 

When the smooth softness of youth is 

replaced by the delicate softness of age, 

I will still want to touch your skin. 

When your face is full of the lines of 

every smile you have ever smiled, 

of every surprise, I have seen 

flash through your eyes, 

when every tear you have ever cried 

has left its mark upon your face,

I will treasure you all the more, 

because I was there to see it all. 

I will share your life with you, Meredith, 

and I will love you until the last breath leaves your body or mine.” 

~ Laurell K. Hamilton, A Lick of Frost

It's No Good

“It's no good pretending that any relationship has 

a future if your record collections disagree violently 

or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak 

to each other if they met at a party.” 

~ Nick Hornby

I Know I Am

“I know I am but summer to your heart, 

and not the full four seasons of the year.” 

~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

If Conversation Was The Lyrics

“If conversation was the lyrics, laughter was the music,

 making time spent together a melody that could 

be replayed over and over without getting stale.” 

~ Nicholas Sparks

There is Greatness

“There is greatness in doing something you hate

 for the sake of someone you love.” 

~ Shmuley Boteach

Every Man I Meet

“Every man I meet wants to protect me. 

I can't figure out what from.” 

~ Mae West