“In real love, you want the other person's good. In romantic love, you want the other person.”

“You know what love means? It means loving the person you are now and not the person you want someone to be or the person they will be.”

“Maybe we shouldn't be looking for love. Maybe we should be looking for a person. Because maybe you can find love in a person, but not have that person. So if you look for love, what you will find is love. But if you want to belong to someone, and you want someone to belong to you, you should look for a person.”

“The real question is, can you love the real me? Not the perfect person you want me to be, not that image you had of me, but who I really am.”

“Human love is directed to the other person for his own sake, spiritual love loves him for Christ's sake. Therefore, human love seeks direct contact with the other person; it loves him not as a free person but as one whom it binds to itself. It wants to gain, to capture by every means; it uses force. It desires to be irresistible, to rule.”

“All too often, "falling in love" with the fantasy of romantic love becomes the aphrodisiac, rather than learning to love the real person and in real conditions of existence.”