on love

Boys fascinated me and frightened me in equal measure; I didn’t understand them and neither did I want to. Their function was for gratification, whereas female friends provided everything else that mattered. It was a way of keeping boys at arm’s length.

The demands that the hard work of love makes on our development are larger than life, and as beginners we are not a match for them. But if we can hold out and take this love upon us as a burden and an apprenticeship, instead of losing ourselves in all the trivial and frivolous games behind which people have hidden from the utter seriousness of

‘What you’re talking about is the moment. The moment that the love already inside you comes, through mysterious forces, to concentrate its full force on a single point. Just as warm sunlight can, by passing through a lens, turn to fire, so too can love. It’s wrong to see it as something that swoops in from outside. It’s because it arises from the

Being loving does not mean we will not be betrayed. Love helps us face betrayal without losing heart. And it renews our spirit so we can love again.

I realized that places are kingdoms of memories and relationships; that the landscape is only ever a reflection of how you feel inside.

To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients—care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.

‘Shelley Winters said: “Whenever you want to marry someone, go have lunch with his ex-wife.”’ ‘Are you suggesting I have lunch with your ex-wife before I have lunch with you?’ ‘No, I just think people give such an edited sales pitch of themselves on a first date, you don’t really get to see any of who that person really is.’

We see movies in which people are represented as being in love who never talk with one another, who fall into bed without ever discussing their bodies, their sexual needs, their likes and dislikes. Indeed, the message received from the mass media is that knowledge makes love less compelling; that it is ignorance that gives love its erotic and