72 Heartfelt First Love Quotes

Few experiences are as universally cherished and profoundly impactful as the feeling of first love. It marks a pivotal moment in our lives, leaving an indelible imprint on our hearts and shaping the way we view love forever. Whether it was a whirlwind romance, a shy confession, or a gentle, gradual realization, first love has a unique way of captivating us with its pure, unfiltered emotion. In this collection, we've gathered 72 of the most heartfelt quotes about first love that capture both its beauty and its bittersweet essence. These quotes reflect the passion, innocence, and unforgettable nature of those early romantic encounters, inviting you to reminisce and find solace in the words of those who have eloquently expressed what we all feel.

1. “I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say.” - Daphne duMaurier

2. “The future for me is already a thing of the past -You were my first love and you will be my last” - Bob Dylan

3. “No, this trick won't work... How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? ” - Albert Einstein

4. “For they might be parted for hundreds of years, she and Peter; she never wrote a letter and his were dry sticks; but suddenly it would come over her, If he were with me now what would he say? --some days, some sights bringing him back to her calmly, without the old bitterness; which perhaps was the reward of having cared for people; they came back in the middle of St. James's Park on a fine morning--indeed they did.” - Virginia Woolf

5. “I was in love, and the feeling was even more wonderful than I ever imagined it could be.” - Nicholas Sparks

6. “Maybe not," she said as we came to the car. "But maybe that isn't so bad. You can't love anyone that way more than once in a lifetime. It's too hard and it hurts too much when it ends. The first boy is always the hardest to get over, Haven. It's just the way the world works.” - Sarah Dessen

7. “The first stab of love is like a sunset, a blaze of color -- oranges, pearly pinks, vibrant purples...” - Anna Godbersen

8. “Lena's hair was sticking out in about fifteen directions, and her eyes were all small and puffy from crying. So this was what girls looked like in the morning. I had never seen one, not up close.” - Kami Garcia

9. “There's no love like the first.” - Nicholas Sparks

10. “I haven’t had the chance to look at too many men’s faces up close. And I noticed how his skin was thicker than mine, and a gorgeous shade of toast. The stiff blond hairs on his cheeks and chin seemed to be growing before my eyes. He smelled like starch. Like pine. His nose wasn’t so pointy afterall. …And out of the blue, he kissed me. Right in the middle of the Robert E. Lee Hotel Restaurant, he kissed me so slowly with an open mouth and every single thing in my body-my skin, my collarbone, the hollow backs of my knees, everything inside of me filled up with light.” - Kathryn Stockett

11. “The first kiss can be as terrifying as the last.” - Daina Chaviano

12. “In the darkest hour of winter, when the starlings had all flown away, Gretel Samuelson fell in love. It happened the way things are never supposed to happen in real life, like a sledgehammer, like a bolt from out of the blue. One minute she was a seventeen year-old senior in high school waiting for a Sicilian pizza to go; the next one she was someone whose whole world had exploded, leaving her adrift in the Milky Way, so far from earth she was walking on stars.” - Alice Hoffman

13. “Before she realized he was next to her, he had placed his hands over hers on the countertop, then hooped his fingers through hers. Gretel looked up at him, so startled she might as well have been shot.'I just wanted to wake you up', he said.Which is exactly what he did. One look at him and her heart was racing. One look, and whatever had been before was all over.” - Alice Hoffman

14. “One spirit remained unaware of his presence, staring at Miss Parker with such longing that he reluctantly decided to let it stay. The spirit, a hollow-eyed girl with ringlets and clothing from long past, reached toward Percy, wishing to touch her. Alexi understood. When left to her own devices, Miss Parker was neither shy nor awkward; she was radiant.” - Leanna Renee Hieber

15. “...I couldn't let go of the thought that it had, in fact, been he, restless and moody Heathcliff. Day after day, he floated through all the Wal-Marts in America, searching for me in a million lonely aisles.” - Marisha Pessl

16. “True love, like any other strong and addicting drug, is boring — once the tale of encounter and discovery is told, kisses quickly grow stale and caresses tiresome… except, of course, to those who share the kisses, who give and take the caresses while every sound and color of the world seems to deepen and brighten around them. As with any other strong drug, true first love is really only interesting to those who have become its prisoners. And, as is true of any other strong and addicting drug, true first love is dangerous.” - Stephen King

17. “When you care more if someone else lives than you do about yourself- is that what [love is]?” - Jodi Picoult

18. “He smiles at me, and I am suddenly seventeen again - the year I realize that love doesn't follow the rules, the year I understood that nothing is worth having so much as something unattainable” - Jodi Picoult

19. “A man is lucky if he is the first love of a woman. A woman is lucky if she is the last love of a man.” - Charles Dickens

20. “Oh, dear." She let her head fall back to the pillow. "There it went. I've fallen in love with you now.""Just now?" Chuckling, he came to a sitting position, resting his forearm on one bent knee. "Well, thank God for belated blessings." He ran a handthrough his hair. "It's been coming on rather longer than that for me.""What?" She sat bolt upright. "What can you mean? Since when?""From the first, Amelia. From the very first.” - Tessa Dare

21. “Since he knew things at the beginning, maybe at the end he knew things too. That we had gone as far as chance would take us. That nothing is more sacred than youth or more hopeful than turning yourself over to someone and saying ~ I have this time, it is not a long time, but it is my best time and my best gift, and I give it to you. When I revisit my youth, I re-visit you.” - Hilary Thayer Hamann

22. “Never," said Gregor. "I'll never get rid of you, no matter how hard I try." It was no longer an effort to say the words. "I love you.""I love you, too," said Luxa.After that there was nothing left to say.” - Suzanne Collins

23. “First loves can fuck you up.” - Tara Kelly

24. “Before we belonged to anyone else, we were each other's.” - Elizabeth Noble

25. “It couldn't last of course. They both knew it. Not the evening, Not the holiday.” - Elizabeth Noble

26. “Could a scar be like the rings of a tree, reopened with each emotional season?” - Magenta Periwinkle

27. “I love to walk through snow, to climb mountains, to smell the fresh air and I love to dream about flying. Soaring through the air, watching the earth from above, feeling the wind in my face and touching the clouds would be an amazing experience.” - Oliver Neubert

28. “Something about first love defies duplication. Before it, your heart is blank. Unwritten. After, the walls are left inscribed and graffitied. When it ends, no amount of scrubbing will purge the scrawled oaths and sketched images, but sooner or later, you find that there’s space for someone else, between the words and in the margins.” - Tammara Webber

29. “That first love. And the first one who breaks your heart. For me, they just happen to be the same person.” - Sarah Dessen

30. “The paradox of love is that to have it is to want to preserve it because it's perfect in the moment but that preservation is impossible because the perfection is only ever an instant passed through. Love like travel is a series of moments that we immediately leave behind. Still we try to hold on and embalm against all evidence and common sense proclaiming our promises and plans. The more I loved him the more I felt hope. But hope acknowledges uncertainty and so I also felt my first premonitions of loss.” - Elisabeth Eaves

31. “On revient toujours a son premier amour." It sounds like a cynicism to-day. As if we really meant: "On ne revient jamais a son premier amour." But as a matter of fact, a man never leaves his first love, once the love is established. He may leave his first attempt at love. Once a man establishes a full dynamic communication at the deeper and higher centers, with a woman, this can never be broken. But sex in the head breaks down, and half circuits break down. Once the full circuit is established, however, this can never break.” - D.H. Lawrence

32. “Isn't it supposed to be like this?" He smiled. "The glory of first love, and all that. It's incredible, isn't it, the difference between reading about something, seeing it in the pictures, and experiencing it?""Very different," I agreed. "More forceful than I'd imagined.” - Stephenie Meyer

33. “But maybe that isn't so bad. You can't love anyone that way more than once in a lifetime. It's too hard and it hurts too much when it ends. The first boy is ialways the hardest to get over, Haven. It's just the way the world works.” - Sarah Dessen

34. “I could take back those moments that snatched you away from me or maybe just wipe away those ten minutes when you came to me for the first time and I looked into your eyes to realise what love is.” - Faraaz Kazi

35. “I trust the red sun setting, the leafless November trees.On Monday morning I look foward fearlessly to Friday’s eve.But humans are not as reliableas nature, as trees.I wonder if you’ll come back;I trust only that you leave.” - Ellen Wittlinger

36. “Falling in love is very real, but I used to shake my head when people talked about soul mates, poor deluded individuals grasping at some supernatural ideal not intended for mortals but sounded pretty in a poetry book. Then, we met, and everything changed, the cynic has become the converted, the sceptic, an ardent zealot.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

37. “Love, like everything else in life, should be a discovery, an adventure, and like most adventures, you don’t know you’re having one until you’re right in the middle of it.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

38. “Who are you anyway? What are you even doing here?”“Haven,” she said quietly, peeking at him.He gazed at her peculiarly. “Heaven? No, this definitely isn't Heaven. But I get why you’re confused, since I'm standing in front of you.” She stared at him, and hecracked a smile. “I'm kidding. Well, kinda… I have been told I've taken a girl to Heaven a time or two.”“Haven, not Heaven,” she said, louder than before. Nothing about the conversation made sense to her. “My name’s Haven.” - JM Darhower

39. “While she could hardly fathom what had just happened to her that night, she reached some conclusions before she fell asleep, certain things now made perfect sense; Moon River didn’t sound so syrupy, mistletoe wasn’t such a bad idea, and perhaps dating was not such a frivolous waste of time after all.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

40. “... you’ll have to fall in love at least once in your life, or Paris has failed to rub off on you.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

41. “Stop worrying about being that perfect person because no one is perfect. Put your focus on being that right person that will love, understand, and care for that other.” - Jonathan Anthony Burkett

42. “...You never forget your first love. It’s the most awful feeling in the world to love someone who can’t love you back..” - Marie Coulson

43. “Love, like Fortune, favours the bold.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

44. “We were the wrong age for love and yet it was all we could think about.” - Brendan Cowell

45. “I loved everything about her, and I didn't care how dark she got. If anything it was what I loved the most, the veil of pain that fell across her face most of the day, and all of the night.” - Brendan Cowell

46. “It took a moment to recognize Timothy... her first love. There had been a time when the mere sight of his handsome face had made her catch her breath. It had taken her years to recover from losing Timothy. Now the pain of his loss was muted and somehow apart from her, as if a broken engagement had happened to some other young, naive girl. She looked at him, and all she could think was, Thank Goodness. Thank goodness she's escaped marrying him.” - Elizabeth Hoyt

47. “That's it. Love makes us all strong.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

48. “You never knew this, but I was in love. Okay, infatuated, but it felt like love at the time.” - Teresa Lo

49. “But in that moment, I didn’t want to be trusted. I wanted something far more primal. I stretched up on my tiptoes and leaned in. I closed my eyes as his scent overcame me. When his lips touched mine it felt as if he’d caressed them with a feather. It was all I could do not to wrap myself around him and do things I’d never really thought about doing before.” - Sara Hubbard

50. “The brittle bones beneath my chest cracked, piercing my heart. It was you who breathed new life into my lungs and it was you who would later syphon the life you had given so as to feed your selfish desires” - Sonya Watson

51. “In the morning, that moment, when I knew it was you. When I could feel you breathing and we opened our eyes at the exact same time.” - Kate Chisman

52. “My Dear Mrs Winter. (I had half a mind when I dipped my pen in the ink, to address you by your old natural Christian name.)The snow lies so deep on the Northern Railway, and the Posts have been so interrupted in consequence, that your charming note arrived here only this morning...I get the heartache again when I read your commission, written in the hand which I find now to be not in the least changed, and yet it is a great pleasure to be entrusted with it, and to have that share in your gentler remembrances which I cannot find it still my privilege to have, without a stirring of the old fancies. ... I am very very sorry you mistrusted me in not writing before your little girl was born; but I hope now you know me better you will teach her, one day, to tell her children, in times to come when they have some interest in wondering about it, that I loved her mother with the most extraordinary earnestness when I was a boy.I have always believed since, and always shall to the last, that there never was such a faithful and devoted poor fellow as I was. Whatever of fancy, romance, energy, passion, aspiration and determination belong to me, I never have separated and never shall separate from the hard hearted little woman - you - whom it is nothing to say I would have died for, with the greatest alacrity! I never can think, and I never seem to observe, that other young people are in such desperate earnest, or set so much, so long, upon one absorbing hope. It is a matter of perfect certainty to me that I began to fight my way out of poverty and obscurity, with one perpetual idea of you. This is so fixed in my knowledge that to the hour when I opened your letter last Friday night, I have never heard anybody addressed by your name or spoken of by your name, without a start. The sound of it has always filled me with a kind of pity and respect for the deep truth that I had, in my silly hobbledehoyhood, to bestow upon one creature who represented the whole world to me. I have never been so good a man since, as I was when you made me wretchedly happy. I shall never be half so good a fellow any more.This is all so strange now, both to think of, and to say, after every change that has come about; but I think, when you ask me to write to you, you are not unprepared for what it is so natural to me to recall, and will not be displeased to read it. I fancy, - though you may not have thought in the old time how manfully I loved you - that you may have seen in one of my books a faithful reflection of the passion I had for you, and may have thought that it was something to have been loved so well, and may have seen in little bits of "Dora" touches of your old self sometimes, and a grace here and there that may be revived in your little girls, years hence, for the bewilderment of some other young lover - though he will never be as terribly in earnest as I and David Copperfield were. People used to say to me how pretty all that was, and how fanciful it was, and how elevated it was above the little foolish loves of very young men and women. But they little thought what reason I had to know it was true and nothing more nor less.These are things that I have locked up in my own breast, and that I never thought to bring out any more. But when I find myself writing to you again "all to your self", how can I forbear to let as much light in upon them as will shew you that they are there still! If the most innocent, the most ardent, and the most disinterested days of my life had you for their Sun - as indeed they had - and if I know that the Dream I lived in did me good, refined my heart, and made me patient and persevering, and if the Dream were all of you - as God knows it was - how can I receive a confidence from you, and return it, and make a feint of blotting all this out! ...” - Charles Dickens

53. “Alas! with all her reasoning, she found, that to retentive feelings eight years may be little more than nothing.” - Jane Austen

54. “I tucked the Camel coupon from his cigarette pack into my pocket. A souvenir of the moment where he said maybe. I would hold on to his maybe for as long as it would take, even forever.” - Kimberly Novosel

55. “I came hoping to see those eyes, but instead I return with my heart, leaving behind only flowers.” - Kim Dong Hwa

56. “I’ll love you until the last petal falls, Jules.” - Laura Miller, Butterfly Weeds

57. “Could it be that first love was the only true love? And that after those first fires had been doused or burned out, men and women chose whom they would love based on worldly needs, and then reenacted the rituals and feelings of that first pure experience - nursed the flames that once burned of their own accord...” - Simon Van Booy

58. “On that last day, somewhere ahead, inside an unseasonably warm winter night, he’ll say my name and leave a hole no one can fill – something to hold onto when my hands are full.” - Rebecca Tsaros Dickson

59. “My first love. He was my first favorite mistake.” - Lauren Blakely

60. “We had so much to say to each other, like we’d been quiet our whole lives until we met. It was as if I had underestimated how hungry I was for a companion, how much I needed to be understood, to be pursued, to be seen and to be reflected in someone’s eyes.” - Kimberly Novosel

61. “Think of that person you knew when you were a kid, who you always thought you could have loved completely and forever.Well, you could have. It’s the truth, and it’s the saddest and simplest thing. There isn’t just one person for each of us in the world. There aren’t many, but there are always a few people we could have made it with, that maybe we still want to make it with, that press themselves so close to our hearts they leave scars, and then slip through our fingers and disappear from our lives. And it doesn’t make a difference if you’re thirteen or ninety- eight because some things you feel are real, no matter when.” - Abigail Tarttelin

62. “Never dreaming, was I, poor Jack Duluoz, that the soul is dead. That from Heaven grace descends . . . No Doctor Pisspot Poorpail to tell me; no example inside my first and only skin. That love is the heritage, and cousin to death. That the only love can only be the first love, the only death the last, the only life within, and the only word . . . choked forever.” - Jack Kerouac

63. “I’m not saying it will be perfect, it seldom ever is, BUT what’s wrong with giving love another chance? I want to make new memories with you, Chase. I want you to show up at my house for a date. A real date. I want to stress over what to wear. I want to miss you when you’re not with me. I want to get all giggly whenever you call saying you need to hear my voice one last time before you can go to sleep. I want get jealous because some girl realizes what I’ve got and tries to convince you … you can do better. I want to smile when you tell her that she doesn’t have a chance….” -Chasing Memories” - Adriana Law

64. “It is said that our destiny is set, predetermined before conception. But I myself, have never been a believer…” - Deborah Ann

65. “I liked the air I was breathing, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with my head,” I assured him with a giggle. “Will you kiss me again?” I flirted sweetly.” - Deborah Ann

66. “You look like a Greek God, not to attract me per say, but to be attractive to all. It’s part of your power, your persuasive way. It’s also part of the evil, to make it harder for you to remain good. Evil doesn’t just come in the form of a monster, it comes in the form of a beautiful woman, a temptress if you will, in the form of sin. With your incredible good looks, women will be more drawn to you, which could tempt you to evil’s sin; a curse, as well as a gift.” - Deborah Ann

67. “Reader, I kissed her. A quiet walk we had, she and I.” - Gary D. Schmidt

68. “You reached into my chest with your words. When you spoke, my heart danced. Love muddled thoughts based in reason. Interest withered like a flower in dry heat then your words wrapped themselves around my heart and yanked it from my body. Now I stand bewildered by the sight of my heart beating on the cold concrete floor.” - Sonya Watson

69. “He leaned down and placed his lips on mine and gave me the most delicious kiss of my entire life. I saw fireworks light up the night sky. My heart beat like a drum. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I loved him, and that made this kiss the best of my entire life. This kiss was the real thing.” - Shannon McCrimmon

70. “First love is very sweet, but we always lose them, due they come when we are stupid immature children” - M.F. Moonzajer

71. “She dragged me across the floor, stopping from time to time only to kick me. I didn't know our cows too could be so inhuman.” - Samuel Beckett

72. “Where Destiny sets its path,Fate shall follow...:” - Deborah Ann