“They will not love me, you say? When have they ever loved me? How can I lose something I have never owned? - Stannis”
“The true and not despairing Friend will address his Friend in some such terms as these."I never asked thy leave to let me love thee,--I have a right. I love thee not as something private and personal, which is your own, but as something universal and worthy of love, which I have found. O, how I think of you! You are purely good, --you are infinitely good. I can trust you forever. I did not think that humanity was so rich. Give me an opportunity to live.”
“I thought perhaps that when you told me you did not love me that my own feelings would fall away and atrophy, but they have not. They have grown every day. I love you now more desperately, this moment, than I have ever loved you before, and in an hour I will love you more than that”
“There is more beauty inside you than in anyone I have ever met. These pictures don’t lie. I won’t ever forget you. Or stop loving you. You can ask me to. You can tell me to move on. But I won’t. And I never will. Just don’t forget how beautiful we were. How beautiful we can still be.Please.”
“Trust me, I have not earned your dear rebuke,I love, as you would have me, God the most;Would lose not Him, but you, must one be lost,Nor with Lot's wife cast back a faithless lookUnready to forego what I forsook;This say I, having counted up the cost,This, tho' I be the feeblest of God's host,The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with His crook.Yet while I love my God the most, I deemThat I can never love you overmuch;I love Him more, so let me love you too;Yea, as I apprehend it, love is suchI cannot love you if I love not Him.I cannot love Him if I love not you.”
“You have no idea how much the last few days have meant to me," I began. "Meeting you has been the best thing that's ever happened to me." I hesitated, know that if I stopped now, I'd never be able to say it to anyone. "I love you," I whispered. "Did you ever imagine something like this?" she wondered aloud. "You and me , I mean?" "No," I said. "It scares me a little." My stomach flipped, and all at once, I was sure she didnt feel the same way. "You dont have to say it back to me," I began. "That's not why I said it--" "I know," she interrupted. "You don't understand. I wasnt scared because you told me. I got scared because I wanted to say it, too: I love you, John.”