“Love is like the sea. It’s a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.” – Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“We don’t get to choose our own hearts. we can’t make ourselves want what’s good for us or what’s good for other people. We don’t get to choose the people we are.” – Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are.” – Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.” – James Baldwin

“A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life, to be thankful for a good one.” – Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, The Yearling

“It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names.” – Yann Martel, Life of Pi

“Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.” – Louis De Bernieres, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

“You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments that stand out above everything else are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.” – Henry Drummond

“The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.” – Mitch Albom

“Perhaps, the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be.” – Anton Chekhov