“I want to push back against this idea that it's not real love if you're not passionately chattering at each other all the time, that it's just as valid (and romantic!) to know instinctively when to shut the fuck up.”
Source: Quietly Hostile: Essays
“It was a cry of real love. A woman's outburst of despair melts a lover's heart, and the forgiveness that he is secretly eager to give her is easily yielded, especially when the woman is young, beautiful, and wearing a dress so low cut that she could rise from the top of it in the costume of Eve.”
Source: Cousin Bette
“Love—real love—sees with the heart, master. Not with the eyes.”
Source: Beauty and the Beast: Lost in a Book
“Don't be deceived by mere words of love. Look to actions for the true measure of one's affections.”
“Love isn’t love until it actually does something about the brokenness in the place it resides.”
Source: En(d)titlement: Trade a Culture of Shame for a Life Marked by Grace
“Too many individuals have been wrongly instructed that biblical love means they must be "nice," and suffer quietly--even if they are mistreated and abused. But as C.S. Lewis wisely wrote, 'Love is more stern and splendid than mere kindness.”
Source: The Emotionally Destructive Relationship: Seeing It, Stopping It, Surviving It
“Real love means showing up and fighting through the hard parts but fumble over our humble mistakes.”
Source: In Love and In Heartbreak: collected stories of the heart
“Real love isn’t always easy. It's choosing to stay and stick around no matter what may happen next.”
Source: In Love and In Heartbreak: collected stories of the heart
“We were sitting face to face, our knees touching.
"But you know," he said, "I don't think you would be yourself if you stopped looking.
And besides, last I checked, being on the hunt for something real counted as living.”
Source: Yoga Bitch: One Woman's Quest to Conquer Skepticism, Cynicism, and Cigarettes on the Path to Enlightenment
“Sometimes, I even found myself wondering: if a love like this, the kind that jackknifes you open like an oyster shell, if that isn't a myth, what else might be real?”
Source: Yoga Bitch: One Woman's Quest to Conquer Skepticism, Cynicism, and Cigarettes on the Path to Enlightenment