Reading

Loving anybody and being loved by anybody is a tremendous danger, a tremendous responsibility.

- James Baldwin

Love is the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.

- M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

Love is as love does. Love is an act of will—namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love. Since the choice must be made to nurture growth, this definition counters the more widely accepted assumption that we love instinctually.

- bell hooks, All About Love

Those of us who do not learn how to love among family are expected to experience love in romantic relationships. However, this love often eludes us. And we spend a lifetime undoing the damage caused by cruelty, neglect, and all manner of lovelessness experienced in our families of origin and in relationships where we simply did not know what to do.