A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.

A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.

The hard part of loving is that one has to learn so often to let go of those we love, so they can do things, so they can grow, so they can return to us with an even richer, deeper love.

It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.

We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.

I've had a good life, and was born to and among people I've admired and loved.

The word enough does not exist in Love's vocabulary.

I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honour more.

A man's love decreases with the revelation of defects; a woman's does not. A woman gets angry when a man denies his faults, because she knew them all along. His lying mocks her affection; it is the deceit that angers her more than the faults. There is something divine in that kind of love, because God loves us in spite of all defects, our failings, and our sins. A man may stand for the Justice of God, but a woman stands for His Mercy.

Mama grizzlies mate later than other bears. They have two cubs instead of four. They wait four years - about twice as long as other bears - between having cubs. And after they're pregnant, if winter is hard or their health is not good or the food supply is uncertain, they re-absorb the embryo into their body.

I want my father to be just my father, the way he has always been, not a separate person with an earlier, mythological life of his own. Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.

The stains on the mattress. Like dried flower petals. Not recent. Old love; there's no other kind of love in this room now.