Historical-novel Quote by Mary Renault

“How can there be love without a true choice? Would you suggest that man be stripped of the capacity to love?”

— Ted Dekker

“Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely.”

— Adam Smith

“It was strange the way he loved her: a sidelong and almost casual love, as if loving her were simply a matter of course,…

— Chad Harbach

“The object of love should feel honoured or flattered, responsible in some way. Instead he felt insulted, degraded and revolted. More than that, he…

— Stephen Fry

“He tried to deal with the concept of love as distinct from possession, and couldn't separate them.”

— Paulo Coelho

“A man who really wants you will do whatever he must to possess your love. So set a standard.”

— Michelle McKinney Hammond

“even if he understood, at some level, that to love is to enter into the inevitability of one day not being able to protect…

— Mohsin Hamid

“I can't settle for merely liking a man when I've known what it’s like to love one.”

— Emily Ann Benedict

“…if a man can be properly said to love something, it must be clear that he feels affection for it as a whole, and…

— Plato

“For the first time in his life, he was receiving the priceless gift of a woman's unconditional love and acceptance. It contradicted all that…

— Barbara Branden

“I felt myself fall more deeply in love with him, with this strangely perfect person who for some reason, decided to love me back.”

— Cara Lynn Shultz

“He asked himself whether it could be that he was in love with her, and then hoped he was not; hoped it not so…

— Henry James